


Scatterer

by chickengun99



Category: RWBY, Worm - Wildbow
Genre: Crossover, Gen, RWBY post-canon, Shouldn't need to read both, Worm pre-canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2018-11-11 13:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11149134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickengun99/pseuds/chickengun99
Summary: Six months after Salem's defeat, the world of Remnant has changed. The Grimm are weakening, and the Kingdoms have started to expand for the first time in decades. However, none of this matters to Ruby Rose, as she must learn to contend with an entirely different world.





	1. Seed 1-1

Deep in the Emerald forest, Raven Branwen returned from a hunt. She was dressed in black and red; thigh-high boots, a short dress, a feathered sash hanging from one hip, and a silver mask covering her face, vaguely reminiscent of a fearsome bird of prey. She had heard the cries of a flock of Nevermore that had managed to survive through isolation, and left her tribe of bandits to fend for themselves while she went out to track them down.

Six months ago, she wouldn't have bothered, certainly not for a group that small. Ever since Salem's fall though, Grimm had begun to appear in lesser and lesser numbers, with the obvious consequence being more Huntsmen out looking for other threats, instead of being tied up dealing with their infestations. That meant more Huntsmen coming after the tribe. She had been forced to take them out, as far from any civilization as possible, at least until some of the heat died down. The tribe was powerful enough to beat almost anyone who might come after them, of course, but killing one Huntsman would only bring more and more until they were-

Smoke. Coming from the encampment.

The bandit drew her sword - a six-foot collapsable ōdachi with a rainbow of interchangeable Dust blades stored in the scabbard - and slashed it through the air, forming a black, shimmering portal.

She did care about the tribe's members of course, but that wasn't the reason for her rush. Each of her people had used up their safeties, so they were on their own if they couldn't fight off whoever or whatever was attacking. She was willing to save anyone she knew from anything that threatened them - one time. They got that one chance, and after that they would have to be strong enough to survive on their own. Even with power like hers, she didn't have time to keep an eye on everyone she cared about at all times, and if someone needed her help more than once then they didn't deserve it anyway.

So, she'd help the tribe fight off their attacker, but not out of any desire to help them. If whoever was attacking could fight the whole camp at once, then they'd be a threat to her as well. She needed more information, and a subtle way to get it.

Raven spawned the exit portal on a hilltop almost a mile away from camp, and shifted into her other form as she passed through. Tar-black wings took her into the air, and her newly enhanced eyesight allowed her to scan the site from a quarter-mile mile up in the air.

As she flew, she considered her possible opponents. The most obvious culprit would be one of the Kingdoms' militaries, most likely Mistral or Atlas. Vacuo was too far away to care, and Vale still hadn't rebuilt their army to the point that they could spare enough troops to pull off an attack like this.

Alternatively, it could have been the Grimm. Despite the death of the monsters' queen, many of the older creatures still lived, and could pose a viable threat if one had happened upon their camp. There were other possibilities, but Raven was forced to stop her speculation as she finally flew over the camp.

There was no movement. Barely even any wind to blow around the debris. The lack of bodies could have implied that they'd run off, chased by someone or something, but it didn't rule out the Grimm either; they didn't leave bodies to be found.

Every tent had been knocked down, burned, or shot full of holes - except for one. Her personal tent was entirely untouched. Whoever this was, they were waiting for her in particular. It was a single person - she could tell how they had moved through the camp from the layout of the battlefield.

The number of people left that were strong enough to do this alone probably didn't exceed a dozen. Compare that list to one made up of people who had reason and ability to track her down personally…

'Ah. Well, this should be interesting.'

Raven shifted back into her human form a few feet above the ground, readied her weapon, removed her mask, and entered the tent. In the middle of the room, nonchalantly leaning up against an absurdly oversized scythe planted blade-first into the ground, was a young woman, acting entirely too at ease considering the situation. Black hair dyed with red streaks topped a petite frame, mostly hidden inside a bright red cloak.

"What are you doing here?"

Ruby Rose looked up to meet her eyes. "That should be pretty obvious."

"Enlighten me."

"Come on Raven, I know you have it, even if none of your people knew what I was talking about. Where's the Relic?"

Raven scoffed. "What makes you believe that I have one? If I did then I would have used it by now. Why would I run and hide when I could just take over my own city?"

"You're not stupid. You know what would come down on your head if you used that thing for your own gain. Honestly, I'm glad you got it when you did - if Salem had gotten her hands on it then we wouldn't be having this conversation - but I need to take it back where it belongs."

"You're still assuming I have it to begin with."

"I mean, you do. We got three of them back, but Knowledge is still missing. It was stored in Haven, which is basically right next door with your Semblance, it disappeared right before Cinder would have gotten to it, and I know you can use your portals for recon. You waited until you wouldn't be seen, used your portals to break in, grabbed it and left. Nobody else has the knowledge and ability to pull off something like that without being seen, and definitely not in a room guarded by two dozen Huntsmen."

Raven paused, then responded, "And what if I do have it? You would just lock it away again."

"So you are planning to use it."

"If I don't use it, then some other disaster will come. If we haven't learned our lessons from the first time, we'll end up having to face down something even worse than Salem. Something that will make even the best of us seem weak in comparison."

Ruby hesitated, then gave a nearly imperceptible sigh. "Right. Umm… how about you come with me, and explain yourself to someone who knows more?"

Another pause. "You think I'm crazy. That after all these years your sister's murderous mother has finally cracked." It wasn't a question. "You're clearly not going to listen to me, so I'll have to be on my way."

Ruby stood, and laid a hand on her scythe, which was still stuck in the ground. "I'm not going to let you leave without handing it over. You might be powerful, but this isn't a fight that you're going to win."

"You've gotten overconfident again. Without your team you're nothing more than another Huntress."

Ruby pulled her weapon out of the ground, lowering into a combat stance. "Well I guess we're about to see if that's true, aren't we?

Raven drew a green blade and slashed an arc over her head, creating a blast of wind that blew the tent apart, leaving the pair of them standing in a mostly-empty clearing. A moment later, and the blade was back in its place, the scabbard rotating to a new color. Both Huntresses stood, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Faster than the eye could track, Raven drew her sword, expanded the deep violet blade, and launched a wave of gravity at her target. Fortunately for Ruby, she wasn't trusting her eyes. In the split-second before the wave hit, her Aura had already reacted, warning her of the approaching threat. That gave the huntress enough time to focus that Aura, activate her Semblance, and scatter. Ruby vanished, and rose petals spread across the clearing in her place, only to begin drawing together to Raven's left. Another wave of gravity was sent in that direction, just before Raven's Aura flared in warning and she dropped through a newly-created portal to land safely away. Crescent Rose came from the opposite side, tearing through the space she had occupied fractions of a second before.

With a flick of her wrist, another portal appeared at Raven's feet, and her sword, purple blade now swapped out for yellow, struck through it. Ruby took advantage of her Aura's advance warning, scattering into a cloud of rose petals once more, until the yellow blade flashed and a storm of lightning forced her back to normal.

After a check to ensure that there was no lasting damage, Ruby transformed again, this time appearing as a swirling cloud of petals that speared toward Raven, shattering the Lightning Dust blade with the blunt end of her scythe. Ruby made use of the temporary advantage, disappearing again only to partially rematerialize in three places at once. The scythe-blade swung at Raven's legs, the spearhead on the end of the weapon's staff came for her side, and an Ice Dust-infused .50 caliber bullet aimed to freeze over the opening of her scabbard, preventing access to another blade.

Raven kept each of the three attacks from landing, launching herself over the scythe while summoning a portal that put the spearhead between herself and the bullet. A moment later, and she had retrieved a new blade, this one a dark shade of orange. A twirl of the blade created a dome made of rock, sealing her in as innumerable portals appeared across the clearing. Ruby was forced to dart back and forth across the clearing as beams of heat flew from one portal into another into another, covering the camp in a loose grid of fire.

Ruby closed in on the dome, expanding her Aura until she could feel the inside. She dematerialized, and then reappeared inside, ducking under Raven's swing. She was at a disadvantage in the tight space, especially once Raven collapsed her sword down. The two exchanged a whirl of attacks, blocks and parries, Raven slowly gaining the advantage and landing blows until Ruby was forced to run; running Gravity Dust along the blade of her scythe and slamming it into the wall, shattering a large portion of the dome.

Raven swung down, Ruby catching the attack on the barrel of her weapon before spinning around, sending the spearhead on the staff's base at Raven's head. Raven ducked under, sword moving in one direction while scabbard moved in another, driving at the reaper from two directions at once, only for both attacks to be deflected with a single upwards motion. Crescent Rose's barrel reached toward the sky as the staff and blade shoved the strikes away from its wielder. Ruby pushed upwards and ducked under her opponent's guard, catching the spearhead on Raven's Aura before finishing with her rifle barrel under Raven's chin.

Raven looked Ruby in the eyes. "You have grown stronger. Your Semblance has gotten impressive, It's been a long time since I've seen one so versatile."

Ruby ignored the comment, instead repeating her demand from earlier, "Either give me the Relic, or come with me back to Vale and help us sort all this out. We don't have to keep fighting!"

"If you think I'm going to give up that easily, then you still have a lot to learn about me."

Raven held out her sword, orange blade swapped out for one colored light grey, and used her Aura. A bright flash came from the sword, briefly disorienting Ruby as she slammed her scabbard into the right side of the scythe, jerking her head in the opposite direction causing the bullet to buzz by the left side of her head. She dropped through another portal, not reappearing until a few moments later. As she dropped into the clearing once more, her appearance seemed to have changed, her deep red Aura now flickering with cracks and bolts of black and blue.

Ruby's eyes widened in shock, and she charged Raven, scattering into a vortex of petals once more. Raven didn't react physically, but a flaming portal appeared nonetheless, jerking forward to intercept the scythe-wielder, burning through much of her remaining Aura and redirecting her into the ground several yards ahead of Raven. Ruby tried to stand, but she was interrupted by another portal, this one crackling with electricity, opening beneath her. The rest of her Aura was drained as she fell through, and it crackled into nonexistence as she landed at Raven's feet.

Raven stared down at her opponent as her Aura shifted back to normal, and spoke. "You wanted the Relic, well here it is. Before I decide what to do with you, what did you do with the rest of my people?"

Ruby groaned, pulling herself up onto one elbow. "Ugh… They ran away. I don't know where they went though." She hesitated a moment before tensing up and asking, "What are you going to do now?"

"Normally, anyone who attacked us like this would die. Lucky for you, however, you still have your safety. I admit it's a little unusual for me to be saving someone from myself, but I owed Summer a few favors so this will have to do."

Ruby relaxed for a moment, but then Raven continued, "That being said, I can't simply leave you here to come after us again. I can't trust you to stay with us, either, so I'm going to have to do something more... permanent." Her Aura lit up in blue and black once more as she drew her sword and slashed. A portal appeared, much more slowly than all the previous ones.

Ruby moved, grabbing her weapon and trying to scramble backwards, but there was little point. A downside of her Semblance was that using it with a depleted Aura would almost certainly be lethal, and Raven could simply make more portals if she got too far away. Raven's purple sword activated, and the portal glowed the same shade in response, beginning to suck debris in towards it. Raven simply stepped through before the pull was able to disturb her footing, but Ruby was left to be helplessly dragged backwards until she crossed the portal herself.

—

As I crossed the portal, I tried to make sense of where I was. Raven's portals had a huge range even when she wasn't using one of the Relics, so we could be pretty much anywhere right now. We were on something incredibly hard; concrete, or maybe something else like it. That meant we were somewhere inhabited. It was the middle of the day, so we hadn't gone very many timezones. Based off the sound of the wind, we were up very high, meaning either some kind of secret mountain base or a big city with skyscrapers. The muffled sound of traffic below told me that it was probably the latter. There weren't very many cities of that size in the world, even with the rapid expansion of the last few months. The cool temperature ruled out Atlas or Vacuo, so we were on the roof of a skyscraper in a city in either Vale or Mistral. That still meant we could be in any one of a dozen places, but it helped some.

I slowly pushed myself up to get a better look around. I didn't know why Raven would take me to a major city, but then she'd proven she... wasn't all there anymore when we were talking earlier. A glance over the roof's edge didn't reveal any obvious landmarks, so I looked back at Raven.

"Where... exactly, are we?" I asked, still out of breath. My Aura still hadn't begun to recharge; she must have hit me hard.

Raven stepped up onto the edge of the building, looking out at the landscape. "When someone uses a Relic, their Semblance grows exponentially more powerful. I honestly don't know where we are, but the Relic is suggesting that it's not anywhere you can get by mundane means. It's nowhere on Remnant, so you won't be coming back unless I allow you to."

Not on Remnant? What? Where else could we… No way. She was just going to leave me here? I started slowly moving backwards, in the vague direction of the portal. If I could get close enough without her seeing me...

She continued "Wherever it is, the inhabitants have technology. You'll be comfortable."

She was totally gonna leave me here. "And when will you come back for me?"

I was forced to stop crawling as she turned to face me. "I don't plan to. You challenged me, and you failed. You attacked my tribe. Either of those would earn anyone else a swift death; I'm being kind by doing this." She began walking back towards the portal.

Crap, she was leaving now! As she walked past me, I launched to my feet and ran past her, trying to get through before it closed, only for Raven to swing her scabbard around and slam it into my midsection. I keeled over, she stepped through, and the portal blinked closed before I could try again.

I stood there staring for a moment. It took until then for Raven's words to click. I was, somehow, on another world. I had no idea where I was, no way back home, and only enough supplies for a couple of weeks.

I walked over to the roof edge, and looked out over the city.

It was on the coast, like Vale, but seemed to be a lot smaller. It couldn't have been much bigger than Patch. The ocean breeze was blowing in from across the water, reminding me of Mom's grave on Patch. I was standing on one of a few very tall office buildings, facing toward the water. The building across from me had a logo printed near the top; a black crown on a red-and-yellow checkerboard background. Past that were eight or nine city blocks running right up to the edge of the water. The coastline curved sharply away from me in both directions, and floating in the middle of the bay was a huge building with a clear glowing dome covering it like an Aura.

Looking down, I could see people and cars, with smaller apartment buildings tucked between the skyscrapers. Farther inland, there were houses, spread out much further apart than I would have expected, but given that there weren't any walls around the city they must be able to afford the space.

The whole place was really different, even if there seemed to be a few similarities from up here. This was gonna be really hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this is an AN. My first AN, actually, so that's exciting. This is the first thing I've ever written for something other than school, and a large portion of my reason for writing it is so I could improve my abilities for other things. I've looked through for typos, but it's very possible that I've missed some, so please let me know about any of those. On top of that, if I screw up my characterization or get anything wrong in terms of keeping to Worm canon, feel free to yell at me about that too. I'm not gonna improve without criticism, so as long as it's constructive feel free to keep it coming!
> 
> In less exciting news, I'm going to be waiting a bit before posting the next chapter. I'd like to build up a backlog before posting more, but I wanted to get this out as a sort of pilot episode to gauge interest and ensure my writing style is bearable. The next chapter will be out by this time next month at an absolute maximum, and hopefully I'll be able to start a schedule by then.


	2. Seed 1-2

This was going to be easier than I thought! This place is really weird though...

Getting down from the building had been pretty simple, I just had to use my Semblance and I could float down on the breeze. It hadn’t taken long to realize that people here dressed differently either; I figured that out while I was still halfway up the building. Most people seemed to wear very drab colors, at least compared to what was common on Remnant. Luckily, brighter outfits didn’t seem to be totally unheard of, and I was able to wrap my cape around myself as a cloak to hide my outfit and weapon.

My Semblance kept being useful, making me harder to see as I did some people-watching so I could learn how to not stand out once I figured out enough of what I needed to survive here. The first thing I learned doing that was that, somehow, the people here spoke Vytalian. Not every phrase made sense, but it was similar enough that I shouldn't draw too much attention when was talking to someone. That didn’t make it any less confusing though; if this wasn’t Remnant, then how did they speak my language? 

Luckily, the writing on the signs was pretty much the same too, so I decided to find a library for better information. If if it was anything like the ones back on Remnant, then I might be able to access the CCT network and learn more about this place. It wasn’t exactly my best plan ever, but I didn’t have any other ideas at the moment. Trying to figure out where the library was took a while, but a lot of that involved working up the courage to ask someone. I’m nowhere near as awkward now as I was back at Beacon, but walking up to a stranger in a place I’d never even heard of and asking for directions was a little bit odd. I got awkward looks the whole way there, but I was probably gonna have to get used to that, at least until I got a change of clothes.

I realized how very different this place was be while I was doing that research. They had terminals there, though they were lower-tech than what I was used to. Everything was mechanical or electronic, compared to the holograms from back home. That seemed strange until, looking stuff up, I realized that this world didn’t have Dust. Back on Remnant it was the basis pretty much all modern technology, but the tech here was totally different. Cars ran off of something called “gasoline,” bullets were fired by “gunpowder,” and houses were powered by all kinds of things that I'd never heard of before. I would have thought that would have changed more, but outside of communication systems most of what they had built here was pretty much identical to what would have been normal on Remnant a decade ago.

There were no references to the Grimm anywhere in my search. I guess that makes sense if Salem never existed here, but it was still a shock. Even after six months, the idea of a world without the constant threat of the Grimm was hard to grasp. In a world where expansion wasn’t slowed by an endless tide of monsters, this world had ended up with dozens of different Kingdoms, and a population of almost seven billion; more than fifty times as many as Remnant. The lack of Grimm had changed other things too; this world had a concrete idea of what their history looked like going back thousands of years. What history I had learned got all patchy and contradictory once you got more than a few hundred years ago, thanks to how quickly most Kingdoms had fallen back then.

Of course, the lack of Grimm didn’t mean that this world didn’t have its own problems. Many more nations just meant many more wars, and a higher population just meant more meat for the grinder. Even when the first appearances of a man named “Scion” put a stop to the most destructive wars, new threats had arisen in the form of giant, unkillable monsters called Endbringers. For the last several decades, one of these things had apparently shown up every few months, wrecked a city, and then left, killing as many people as they could in the process. Despite how relatively new they were, and even without the constant destruction of outlying towns, they had already caused more civilian deaths than the Grimm had in the last fifty years. The cities here weren't designed to hold off attacks like on Remnant, and so their appearances almost always did horrific damage.

Huntsmen didn't seem to exist here either, at least not in the same form. I guess that there wouldn’t have been a need for them here. They had people with Semblances, but those people were called “Parahumans” or “Capes.” They usually hid their identities behind masks and silly names, almost like out of a comic book, but I couldn't figure out why from what I found browsing the “Internet.” They also used their powers pretty much exclusively, most of them not bothering to use a weapon. Maybe they’d copied the comics; Parahumans hadn't been around for much longer than the Endbringers had, so that was possible. The other possibility came to me when I noticed something scary: there were no references to Aura, either. Aura was supposed to be the manifestation of the soul; the thing that makes us alive and sentient. The fact that they didn't have it here had some scary implications, though I wasn't sure whether those were about the people here or the nature of Aura itself.

As for where I was, I found an answer to that too. This city, Brockton Bay, was apparently in a Kingdom called the United States, on a planet called Earth. More helpfully, I had found out what Raven’s portals had done; this world had discovered and contacted an alternate reality, like out of a science-fiction movie. That probably meant that Remnant was yet another reality, and if these people had managed to punch a hole into one, then maybe they could do it to another. If anyone would be able to get me back home, it would be the people who made that hole. Unfortunately, the guy who did that, a supervillain named Professor Haywire, had been killed years before. He’d had a technological Semblance; they were incredibly rare back on Remnant, but apparently more typical here. Nobody seemed to know where his technology had gone, but if I could find it then I might just be able to use it to get back home.

Apparently, that massive floating building I saw in the bay was a sort of home base for a team of Capes that worked for the government, calling themselves the Protectorate. They seemed like the most official group around, and had bases across this entire continent, so my best bet would probably be to go to them. I wasn't sure how to get out to their base, but they had a partner group called the PRT inside the city itself, so I should be able to go there instead. I started heading that way not long after; using my Semblance to keep to the rooftops so I wouldn’t attract even more attention. After looking at some of the costumes the Capes here wore, I’d realized that I looked a lot like one of them; even though I wasn’t wearing a mask, I didn’t want people to mistake me for something I wasn’t.

-

I really should have looked at a map. They had them right there at the library entrance, I could have grabbed one, it would have been simple, but no, I didn’t need one, I was gonna find my way there all by myself! 

About half an hour of wandering later, I was just about to give up and ask someone else for directions when I started hearing gunfire. It picked up after a moment, and I ducked into an alley so I could get to the top of a building without being spotted. I had to focus now; gunfire meant people were in danger, and even if Huntsmen didn’t exist here that wasn’t going to stop me from helping.

The next street over was… hectic. A group of around forty people wearing civilian clothes and armed with pistols and shotguns were on one end, taking cover behind a group of big trucks. Looking the other way, I saw a group of a dozen men with professional-looking gear and automatic weapons. As I watched, they advanced up to the next alley in such an organized way that I had to double-check to make sure there were no military markings. I didn’t see anything obvious, so either this was some kind of special forces operation or they were just exceptionally well-trained. The location didn’t really help either theory though; this wasn’t exactly the most high-brow area, so why would anybody like that be fighting here?

I wasn’t really sure which side I should be helping here. The soldiers looked more official, but then the civilians could just be defending themselves. Before I could make a decision though, it was made for me.

The ground began to shake in time to loud footsteps, moving quickly towards us. Charging down the street from behind the civilians was a pair of feminine giants wearing stylized plate armor. One had a sword and shield, and the other used a spear. They were running far faster than even the cars I’d seen driving around, but they slowed to a stop as they reached the civilians. The one with the shield crouched down to give their allies some extra cover while her partner one got down on a knee, apparently to speak with the leaders.

I sort of remembered these two from the library research, but I couldn’t remember who they were beyond being villains. I probably should have spent more time memorizing, but it was too late now.

After talking for a second, during which the pair seemed totally unconcerned by a whole lot of bullets coming from the soldiers, they turned and led the civilians in a charge, forcing the soldiers back. They barely reacted any time they got shot, and even getting hit where their armor didn’t protect them didn’t seem to do as much damage as it should have. These two’s Semblance was more complex than just being really big, they were tougher than they should be too.

The soldiers had started falling back as soon as the giants had shown up, but now they were in full retreat. They had gone part way down an alley and pulled out in a pair of vans, but the giantesses easily outran the vehicles and stopped them before they’d gotten more than half a block away. They jabbed at the tires and engines, then started hacking at the van roofs.

I made my decision as the giantesses got through the armored tops of the vans, and started stabbing down into them. I pulled my hood up over my face, extended my scythe to its full length, and dematerialized. 

This wasn’t the first time I’d interrupted a fight like this. From the perspective of the people on the street, a huge wave of rose petals would have crashed into the fight, then swirled together into a massive vortex that would collapse into me, standing on top of the lead van’s cab. The more scared of me they were, the less likely anyone would be to try anything immediately, so I chose a more intimidating pose to reveal myself. The scythe’s blade pointed up into the air, while the tip of the barrel hovered above the driver’s-side mirror and the staff angled up in the other direction. My cloak flared out in every direction, but the storm of leftover rose petals kept them from seeing anything other than the scythe for the first few seconds.

The moment I appeared, the giantesses dropped into defensive stances. Rose petals floated on the wind around me, created as a side-effect of my Semblance. The pair shared a glance, then began circling me in opposite directions as the spear-wielder spoke. They planned to flank me, while keeping me from realizing it by distracting me with talk. The strategy would also give them a good guess of my experience level; anyone that didn’t see through such an obvious trick, would probably be pretty new at this. I decided against reacting; being flanked wouldn’t make it any harder on me, and if it forced them to underestimate me then that was just a bonus.

“Whoever you are, I’d suggest you leave. This isn’t your fight, and we’d hate to accidentally kill you. Why don’t you go pick a fight with the Merchants instead?” The woman’s voice dripped with contempt.

I was never very good at the banter if my only goal was to insult, so I didn’t bother responding to the jab. Instead, I brought Crescent Rose around, and slammed her into the roof of the van, barrel pointing at the one with the spear.

The pair charged simultaneously, the spear on my left and the sword on my right. They crossed the distance between us in less than a second; so fast that my first warning was from my Aura instead of any movement on their part. I scattered, dashing around the street, then a roof, then jumping onto Sword’s shoulders, jerking around to stay unpredictable. I caught her around the bicep with my scythe before pulling the trigger, making sure the bullet would go safely into her partner’s breastplate, and using the recoil to cut deeper into her armor before launching off and landing in the street to gauge the effect. 

Her armor had taken a little damage, but the cut wasn’t more than a few inches deep. They definitely weren’t taking as much damage as they should have been. I’d have to try something different.

My opponents finally figured out where I’d gone, and turned to face me. They were incredibly fast for their size, but they didn’t seem to have the reaction time to make full use of that speed. I could use that. I used my Semblance, dematerializing the standard Flame Dust ammunition and swapping them with less dangerous Shock rounds, then sped towards the one I hadn’t attacked yet. She tried to defend with her spear between us, but I casually went around it, latched onto her arm, and fired a round into a small patch of exposed skin of her partner’s neck. She jumped, apparently startled by the shock, but there wasn’t much of an effect otherwise. Apparently, their damage reduction extended to energy too.

That wasn’t good. I didn’t have a way to hurt them without killing them, and I’d rather not have that be my first act in this new world. Meanwhile, I wasn’t going to be able to avoid their attacks forever, and if the strength they showed pulling apart the vans meant anything, then one lucky hit on their part could probably pulverise me.

I blurred away from a shield bash, then shot backwards, launching off the inside of the shield itself. I caught the blade of my scythe on the inside of Sword’s leg, ricocheting off Spear’s abdomen and shoving my blade down to the hilt into Sword’s collarbone. That was a better hit, actually drawing blood, but it didn’t really accomplish much of anything. My Aura flared, and I scattered to avoid a spear thrust, reappearing on the spear itself. I jumped down, landing on the ground before charging at Spear’s leg. I dodged a counterattack, jumped behind her, then caught Crescent Rose’s blade on the back of her knee, pulling the trigger to force her down. I jumped up, ran up her back, then swung the blunt end of my scythe at the back of her head. She fell onto her hands and knees, but I was forced to dodge a slash from her partner before I could take advantage.

Spear was up in a flash, and the pair charged. I charged right back, controlling the pace of the fight and trying to break the giantesses’ weapons. I almost ran Dust up into my scythe’s blade before thinking better of wasting something I couldn’t replace, and instead cut as deeply into the base of the spear as I could. I jumped around, Aura flaring constantly as my opponents moved, and eventually ran back in, landing another cut at the same point. None of the slices ran very deep on their own, but the span of the next minute they built up until a final hit snapped the spear in two. 

No-Longer-Spear jumped backwards, and her partner ran up to cover her. The shield would have made this harder, but apparently the pair had been scared by my stunt with the spear. They had started retreating, and I really had no way to stop them. They weren’t going anywhere near their full speed yet, but based on how they were moving earlier they might be able to outrun me for long enough to shrink back down and hide if they really needed to. 

I ran up a building and jumped from rooftop to rooftop, then shot back down just ahead of them, aiming to make them turn around so I could sweep a leg again, but they just skidded to a stop and made a turn into an alley. I made to follow them, but the tight quarters forced me up onto one of the neighboring buildings until they exited into the next street over. 

That pattern continued for a while longer, and I was getting farther away from my original goal. I was debating simply giving up and letting them go when I heard an inhumanly loud yell from behind me. I manifested, having scattered in order to keep up as the pair gained speed, and spun, watching as another duo flew in, held aloft by a vibrant silver field. One of the two jumped down, wearing a white bodysuit with a lion-themed helmet and pauldrons, and shouted again, the knocking Sword off her feet. A sound similar to a Dust-powered engine came from the other end of the street, and a motorcycle pulled up, a man in blue and white power armor wielding a high-tech polearm blocking the giantesses’ retreat. The last cape, wearing light, silver-colored armor over yellow fabric, remained on the forcefield, with a swarm of smaller fields floating around him. He hovered next to me, extended a hand, and spoke with a slight accent.

“Hey there! You can call me Challenger, what should I call you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is finally done! That backlog I mentioned last time didn't really pan out, but I have started on Chapter 3. You can expect that one to come in right around the end of the month.
> 
> I also feel like I should mention that not every chapter of this is gonna be a fight scene and/or exposition. These last two chapters have been the result of me being terrified of writing dialogue, but that should hopefully change soon.
> 
> As always, yell at me if I've screwed something up, and I will see y'all in a few weeks!


	3. Seed 1-3

I recognized these guys as Protectorate members from the library research. “I’m Ruby,” I said, jumping onto the platform with my Semblance.

He jumped a bit at the sudden speed, but took it in stride. “Ruby, huh? Surprised that name wasn’t taken.” He looked down the street, at where the other two heroes were squaring off with the giants. “How’d this all start? I assume you didn't try to go after these two on your first day of capery?” 

Wait, what? No, why did he think… Right. My face was still covered by my hood, so he had assumed I was a cape. Whatever, I could deal with that later. “Nope Those two were attacking some military-looking guys, so I stepped in before anybody got killed. Everybody got away, but I don't have any real way to catch the giants without killing them.”

As I spoke, sections of the forcefield we were standing on began breaking off, joining the cloud floating around us. “Military? Huh, I don’t think that was any of our guys.” The smaller pieces of forcefield suddenly darted forward, blocking off one end of the street with tiny fragments that reformed into a single, massive sheet. With the field on one end and the two other heroes on the other, the giantesses were trapped. He continued; “It must have been some of Coil’s mercs. They’ve spent the last few weeks carving themselves a chunk of downtown, so this would have been the Nazis pushing back.”

I had no idea who or what he was talking about, but I guess he would know the area better than I would. Speaking of which: “These two are hard for me to pin down, are they gonna be a problem for you three?”

“They will be if their backup gets here before we can get them contained. Assault, Battery, and Velocity are running interference on that though, so as long as we wrap this up fast then we should be able to take them in. You up for it?”

“You bet I am. What should I do?”

“Armsmaster and Triumph shouldn’t have any problems taking down an unarmed Menja, so if you can help me deal with Fenja - ah, that’s the one with the sword, by the way - we should be good to go. You’re the reason Menja lost her spear, right? If I can contain Fenja’s movements, do you think you could disarm her too?”

Well, that shouldn’t be hard. I’d almost managed it myself, earlier, so with Challenger’s help, this should be easy. “Works for me. You ready?”

A nod from him, and I was off. I jumped down to the street and charged my target. She saw me coming immediately and tried to get her partner’s attention. Before she could get there though, another cloud of miniature forcefields shot between them and solidified into a single barrier. 

The unarmed giantess turned to face her opponents as her partner, or Fenja, apparently, drew her sword back and drove it into the field. When the blow bounced off without any apparent damage, she spun and dropped down again, shield held up defensively but ready to spring away as soon as she needed to. I saw the man in armor preparing to face down Menja on the far side before putting it out of my mind to focus on my own fight.

Fenja had crouched down, shield in front with Challenger’s forcefield at her back. She stayed there, apparently waiting for me to make the first move. A different strategy than last time, it seems. Hoping she would fare better on the defensive?

I stopped a short distance ahead of her and began to stretch my Aura. This was hard, and I couldn’t do it very far, but it was great at catching people off-guard. Rose petals filled the space my Aura occupied whenever I used my Semblance, but enough slipped through that I could manage stuff like this without being noticed if I was fast and my opponent didn’t know to watch for it. As the outer edge of my Aura reached her, I scattered, reappeared on her shoulder and tightrope-walked along her arm towards the back of her shield.

She jumped, almost falling over before frantically swatting at me with the pommel of her sword. I dodged her first attempts, but once she started shaking her arm to get me off I had to run on the underside of her arm, catching my scythe on her forearm and swinging forward. One burst of speed got me where I needed to go, and I slashed at the leather strap holding the shield to her wrist. The reduction in damage wasn’t quite enough to protect it, and the shield fell to hang awkwardly off her elbow. I launched off the inside of her arm, aiming to cross to her other arm to deal with the sword, but she recovered her balance and spun, forcing me to scatter around her sword on the backswing.

She started grabbing at her shield, but I needed that to stay right where it was. Before I hit the ground, I charged forward, forcing her to leave the shield where it was as she tried to dodge a swing at her right side, bringing her sword around to strike again. Before she could though, yet another forcefield cloud swooped in and solidified, keeping her from moving out of the way before I landed the blow. The field kept her from rolling with the hit, and before she could regain her balance I was back on the street, scythe behind her left knee as I pulled the trigger, using the recoil to send the giant to one knee. One more jump up and the blunt end smacked her in the head, putting her on the ground.

Once she was there, what remained of the forcefield from the far side of the street - apparently, the field that had tripped up Fenja had been made of the top half of that one - broke apart, then flew towards us and formed into a pyramid around her, keeping her down. I saw that Challenger was now standing on a rooftop, apparently having given up his ride in exchange for more barriers. Turning around, I saw that the other two capes-

Wow. These people are slow, even by the standards of other Huntsmen.

That fight had barely even gotten started. The guy in armor was just now closing the last few feet, while the other one just stared in my direction, jaw hanging open until armor-guy ended the awkwardness: “Triumph! Focus!”

Lion-guy, or Triumph, I guess, snapped back to his fight, where his partner had engaged Fenja. Armor-guy was faster in a fight than I’d thought at first, and he seemed to be pretty skilled compared to what else I’d seen here. Fenja grabbed for him, but Triumph opened his mouth and shouted, creating a solid wave of sound that forced her to cross her arms across her face in defense. His partner used the distraction, turning the head of his polearm into a grappling hook, which fired upwards and latched to her shoulder. She got pulled slightly down as he went up, slicing at her abdomen as he rose over her hands. 

She kept grabbing and punching, but he had landed where she couldn't easily get to him. He clambered up and over her shoulder, and dropped to the ground, slicing his weapon down her back and rolling between her legs. Jumping up and catching one side of his weapon on the back of her right knee and the other on the front of her left, he spun around, activating some kind of thruster on the back of the blade. She went down on one knee, just like her partner had. Another shout from Triumph, who had moved around beside and behind her, and she was on her hands, scrambling to stand back up. The blade of the polearm started glowing red, and its wielder brought it around, slicing it into a gap in her armor, just above her ankle. She screamed, Triumph shouted again, and she went down.

That was so cool! How had he done that without Dust!? I could maybe see some kind of electrical gadget heating up the metal, but doing it that quickly should have made some kind of sparks, and that wasn’t even bringing up the rocket!

Whew. Okay, Ruby, you need to focus now.

While I’d been geeking out, the dividing barrier between us had broken down, most of it reforming into another containment pyramid as a chunk broke off and headed back towards Challenger.

Armor-guy brought his weapon around, sticking it to his back as he walked towards me. He held out a gauntlet. “You seem to be new around here. Do you have a name?”

I started to respond, then stopped. Challenger had assumed I was a cape, and it would probably be good to stop any confusion. I removed my hood and answered his question. “You can call me Ruby.”

His reaction was muted, but it was there. The visor over the top half of his face hid his eyes, but his head tilted fractionally and he shifted position. Triumph, behind him, just started staring again.

“Most capes try to keep a secret identity, to protect their friends and family. You should probably give the idea of giving it up like that a little more thought.”

Heh. I think my friends and family can protect themselves just fine. Either way though… 

“Yeah… about that. I don’t really have a regular identity, at least not here. There’s some stuff we need to talk about, and I think we should do that in private. At risk of being a little cliche... I’m not quite from around here.”

-

“Well. That's quite a story. I don't suppose you have any proof?”

The heroes had cut their patrol short in light of my appearance, and once the van had shown up to contain the giantesses more permanently, Challenger had taken me and Triumph to the PRT building. Right now, I was talking to a woman that Armsmaster had called Director Piggot. Apparently, the person in charge of all the local superheroes didn't have powers of her own. That was odd, but not really important now.

“You could have someone look at the bullets from my scythe. They're made of a few different types of crystal that I’m pretty sure you don’t have here.”

At that, she shared a glance with Armsmaster, who turned and stepped out of the room. That left me here with just Piggot behind her desk and Challenger leaning against the wall behind me.

Piggot continued: “If Armsmaster confirms that, then this is beyond my pay grade. I’ll probably end up sending this to the Chief Director, but I’d like to know as much as possible now, to save some time. My first question is how you got here. You mentioned you were trapped, but why did you come here in the first place? Do we need to worry about more people coming through from this… Remnant?”

Crap. I knew I was going to get asked that eventually, but I still hadn’t thought of a way to do it without giving away a lot more than I wanted to. The Relics were classified beyond all belief back home, and I doubted Oscar would be very happy if I ended up telling everybody here.

“I was sent here by my stepmother, Raven. She abandoned her team a long time ago to go lead a tribe of bandits, and now that the Grimm are gone, I got sent to track her down.” 

“The Grimm?”

Ah right, they never had them here. “The Grimm are... monsters that used to be all over the world, killing and… eating anyone they came across and destroying everything they could. They’ve been around forever, as far as anybody can tell, but they stopped showing up a few months ago.”

She hummed a little at that, and I kept up my discussion of Raven.

“Anyway, Raven’s worldview is… odd. She has this rule where she’ll only save any given person a single time, but anyone she cares about is definitely going to get saved once. She won our fight once I finally found her, and because she still owed me a saving, she sent me here instead of just killing me. It’s hard to say whether or not it could happen again; I’d say it doesn’t seem likely, but Raven is hard to predict at the best of times.”

Piggot pressed on, “But how, exactly, did she get you here? I need to know if other people could use the same methods.”

Dang it, she’s quick. How to explain this without giving away everything... “Her Semblance-

Challenger interrupted, “Semblance?” 

Oh, yeah. “That’s basically Remnant’s word for superpowers. Raven’s Semblance lets her make portals between locations. She stole a… thing that can enhance a person’s Semblance, and that apparently let her make portals here.”

“What kind of thing?”

“...I really don’t want to say.”

Piggot raised an eyebrow, but didn’t do anything otherwise. She was hiding it well, but I wasn’t sure if I’d seen a positive face on her since I’d gotten here. I clarified, “This stuff is really, really secret back home, and with good reason.” 

That was true, for the moment anyway. The Grimm were attracted to negative emotions, and people learning of superweapons like the Relics could have caused a panic. In a few years, once the Grimm had been Hunted to extinction, that would hopefully change, but for the moment we were still keeping these things secret. Just because that reasoning doesn’t apply here doesn’t make it okay to start blabbing everything.

She kept staring for a moment, then responded, “Fine. I can’t promise that the Chief Director will let you keep that secret, but I suppose I won’t press you for it now.” 

I guess that was as good as I was going to get. She wasn’t happy about me keeping that to myself, though. To be honest, she didn’t seem to be a big fan of me in general.

She continued, “Challenger, take Ruby here somewhere. I have some calls to make regarding this whole situation.”

I was about to protest, but Challenger interrupted. “Yes ma’am, let us know what you manage to find.” He turned, and seeing Piggot start talking into a little box - a Scroll, I realized - I stood up and followed.

As the door closed behind us, Challenger turned to me. “You hungry? I don’t think the Director would be happy with us leaving, but we could head down to the cafeteria.” I nodded, and we started walking.

As we went, Challenger started asking questions. “So, you’re from an alternate world. I’ve learned some stuff about Earth Aleph, but from what you talked about in there it sounds like your world split off a whole lot more than thirty years ago. What’s it like there? Y’know, other than the constant attacks by creatures apparently out of my kid’s nightmares?”

“Really, really, different to here. I saw a world map earlier, and even the continents are shaped differently. We only have four kingdoms, and up until recently, the space between them was filled with horrible monsters. Technologically, Remnant’s like forty years ahead, but armies still use swords and spears right alongside guns and grenades, and we’ve never managed to put anything into space. Huntsmen get trained in the use of their powers practically from the moment they gain them, but don’t typically work for any single government once they… graduate…” I trailed off as I caught myself rambling. “Sorry.”

He chuckled at that. “Perfectly alright, I’m just curious. The ‘Huntsmen’ you mentioned, those are basically Remnant’s version of superheroes, right?”

“Pretty much. We’re organized a little differently, but we do a lot of the same stuff. Huntsmen tend to focus more on the Grimm, but until recently that was kind of a necessity.”

“Recently? What changed?”

“That’s… kind of a long story. The Grimm were created by a woman who called herself Salem, but about six months ago…”

We fought, surrounded by the violet crags of the Witch’s lands. The ground, littered with corpses, ash, and puddles of black slime, spawned Grimm almost as fast as we could kill them. Weiss and Blake slaughtered the monsters as quickly as they could as I fought to gain control of my true power - and the world vanished behind a curtain of Silver.

“...A big group of Huntsmen finally tracked her down and killed her, and they’ve stopped appearing since.”

He gave me a look, but otherwise didn’t respond to my obvious hesitance, which I was thankful for. Even though team RWBY had made it through intact, lots of others hadn’t. It hadn’t exactly been a fun fight. We arrived at the cafeteria then, not attracting much attention despite the many troopers inside. I had my hood over my face again, and apparently, capes were a common enough sight here that nobody bothered us beyond a few initial glances.

That was nice, to be honest. The relative lack of undeserved admiration felt a little bit like home.

As we walked over to the buffet line, he changed the subject. “Your plan for coming here was to ask to use Haywire’s tech to return home, right?” At my nod, he continued, “Well I’m hardly a Tinker, so I don’t know much about how all that stuff works, but as far as I know big projects like that tend to take some time. You have any ideas as to what you’ll be doing in the meantime?”

Tinker? Oh, he meant technicals like Haywire or Merlot. “I… hadn’t quite thought that far ahead yet, to be honest. I only got here a couple hours ago, after all. I was kind of hoping that you guys could help out with that, but I guess that’s not quite the PRT’s job.”

“Why would you think that? I’ll grant, your circumstances make you a bit of a special case, but as far as I know, in the eyes of the law, you’re basically a superpowered refugee. Throw in your skills and experience, and I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t just stay here. You could keep doing pretty much what you did on Remnant, you get a place to sleep and food to eat, and we get another powerful cape helping us beat the crap out of this city’s gangs. It’s a win-win!”

I hadn’t thought about that! “Hey, that would be great! We’d have to convince the Director though, and I’m not sure she likes me. Is she gonna be alright with this?”

“Ah, noticed that, did you? It shouldn’t be a problem, she’s like that with pretty much everybody, and she never stops lobbying to get more capes transferred here. She’s not gonna argue with you joining up.”

“Alright then, where do I sign up?”

“And also, where did you put my scythe? I’m gonna need that back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, I just barely finished this in time. I was away from my computer for a week and I think that moved the deadline up farther than I subconsciously expected it to.
> 
> We actually have plot development now! Granted, it's development that every one of you probably saw coming, but it's something, right? I'm going to try to get Chapter 4 out by the fourteenth, but I'm not a hundred percent sure I can manage that. I'll guarantee it by the twenty-first though.
> 
> You may also notice that there's a count for the total number of chapters now. My chapter-by-chapter outline is only a bit more than halfway done, so that number will almost certainly change, but it's a good way of telling me just how far in over my head I've gotten here.
> 
> See you all later!


	4. Seed 1-4

“So, you’ve got a few decisions to make.”

“Alright…”

“The first is where you’ll be living. Your first option is we set you up with an apartment in the city; it would be a lot nicer than whatever you get staying here, but you’d have to spend a lot more time maintaining your civilian identity to protect your neighbors. The alternative is staying here; you’ll spend a lot less time hiding who you are, and you won’t need to deal with travel time in an emergency, but your accommodations won’t be quite as comfortable.”

“I’ll take the second one. I’ve slept in worse conditions before, and hopefully, I shouldn’t be here for long anyway.”

Not long after Challenger had made his offer, Piggot had called him to say that Armsmaster had confirmed my story. From what she had said, he wanted to have a long conversation about Dust in the near future, but that would have to wait until I was settled in. I hadn’t quite realized just how much paperwork would be involved in signing on here, though they weren’t making me do much of it. 

It probably didn’t help that they were setting up a civilian identity for me at the same time - even if I’d be staying here at the Rig, I’d need ID and legal papers.

“Alright, that’ll work. We can find you a dorm somewhere isolated if that’s what you’d prefer. That way you won't get woken up at all hours of the night by shift changes and the like,” The man across from me said, writing on his clipboard. He’d never given me his name, instead just sitting me down

“I’ll be fine pretty much wherever,” I responded.

“Okay then, next question; I’ve been told that you don’t have much to your name at the moment, so we’ll ask you to set up a shopping list. That costume is all you have for clothes, right?”

“Uhh… Yeah, that’s kind of a long-”

“Yep, I assume so. So, as long as you don’t mind the PRT colors, we can get you a few sets of clothes to wear until you’ve got some stuff of your own.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, my S… powers tend to keep stuff cleaner than it would be otherwise.”

He whistled at that. “Dang, I’m jealous. Ah, let’s see… we’re pretty much done here. You’ll be meeting with the Branding department as soon as we’re done here to discuss your name and costume, plus a meeting with…” He glanced up at me, eyebrows raised. “Dragon? How’d you manage to attract that kind of attention?”

Dragon? Another cape? This was the first I’d heard of this schedule, so I had no idea who that was or why I was meeting them. If that was unusual though, then I could assume it had something to do with my circumstances, so best not to give that away. “Uh… I’m not sure?” 

He shot me a look across the table. Yeah, there’s no way he bought that. He didn’t pry though, so I guess it was pretty normal for people to be keeping secrets around him. “Right. You’ll be speaking with Dragon tomorrow, right after a brief bit of power testing so we can get a rough idea of your limits. The Image meeting is about all you’ve got left today, and then we’ll get you set up. Assault should be right outside to escort you to where you need to go while I go find you a room.” He stood, and I did the same.

We walked outside to find a man dressed in an armored, skintight bodysuit colored bright red, paired with a matching red mask across the top half of his face.

He grinned from ear to ear and stuck out a hand. “Hiya there, my name’s Assault, I'm sure you've heard of me!”

Uhh… Okay. “I haven't, actually.” I shook his hand

He slapped one hand to his chest and another to his mouth in mock offense. “Oh! You wound me. I'm forced to assume you're from some backwater nowhere; clearly, that is the only possible explanation for this tragedy!”

I was smiling now, despite myself. This guy’s over-the-top infectious personality kinda reminded me of Nora. Just, y'know, saner. 

As the other guy walked away to set everything up, I returned; “Oh no, I come from a great and mighty kingdom! However, it is quite a large distance from here, so that must be the reason. Please, regale me with the tales of your exploits!”

“Hah!” he responded, “You’re gonna be cool, I can already tell. Nobody else gives me anything to work with there.” We began walking, me following alongside him. “So! I had to sit through this whole meeting about what we could or couldn’t ask you, so this oughta be an interesting conversation. What all can you do?”

I knew that feeling. I’d just gotten here that morning, but I’d just gotten out of my third meeting that day. For some reason, the Protectorate seemed to be a bit anxious to get me joined up. “What do you mean, what can I do?”

“Your powers! I pestered Armsy into showing me his recording, but it didn’t tell me all that much. I heard you’re a speedster?” We turned left, heading for a bank of elevators.

Oh. Well, at least that was something I could talk about in public. I wasn’t supposed to use the Remnan terms for stuff, but I could deal with that. “That used to be what I thought, but I learned how to use it better over time and found out that there was more to it. I can turn into a sort of cloud of rose petals inside a forcefield that moves fast, but it turned out I can fly too, and make it so that only certain pieces of me or my gear are solid at any given time.”

“Huh. How'd you bring down someone like Fenja then? Triumph said you pretty much dismantled her.”

“Well, part of that is my scythe, Crescent Rose.” No need to give the whole spiel now Ruby, keep it simple. “It’s got a sniper rifle built into it that can fire a bunch of different types of bullets. I’ve been using both the scythe and my power pretty much nonstop for the last few years, so I’ve had some practice.”

“Crescent Rose… you named your weapon?” he asked. 

“Uhh… yes?” I replied as we exited the elevators into another corridor. This place was a maze, and I was becoming very glad that I’d had people leading me around this whole time.

His mask, covering little more than his eyes and chin, was pretty revealing compared to Armsmaster’s opaque visor and Challenger’s featureless silver expanse, and it served to show off his facial expressions. He gained a bit of a thoughtful expression, then busted out into another grin. “How much you wanna bet that Armsy names all his halberds too?”

I thought back to what I had seen of Armsmaster’s personality out of public view and laughed along with him. “Alright, so, you went through something like what I am right now when you first joined up, right? What should I be expecting here?”

“Hmm… you’re meeting with Branding next, right? Different departments are going to be run .”

“I think that’s what he said,” I answered.

“Yeah, I’m not sure how much I can help you there. I was kind of a special case when I went in for that too, so I’m not sure how much of this will be accurate. I had a bit of a history before joining up, and for various reasons, they didn’t want the new me connected to the old me.” That seemed like a story, but I didn’t want to interrupt. ”They changed up my cape name, costume, and public persona so that nobody could make the connection. They’re probably not gonna go that far with you, but I couldn't tell you any details.”

“Okay, thanks anyway." We made another turn "Can I ask what that ‘history’ is about?”

“Ah, that’s a story for another time, I’m afraid. The whole deal is still pretty classified, and you’re not technically a full member yet. You know what it’s like, I’m sure.”

I did, in fact. I had never enjoyed keeping secrets, but getting wrapped up in as much as I had back home had made it so I accidentally stumbled into a whole lot of them. I had kind of hoped that I wouldn’t have to worry about that kind of thing here, but the tangled webs of clearances and confidentiality were even larger here than they were back home.

We arrived at our destination - an otherwise unremarkable door with the word ‘Branding’ printed across it, just beneath the window. Assault spoke up, easily sliding back into his posh accent, “And this is where we shall part ways, milady. Another should be awaiting the completion of your meeting to take you back your chambers. I bid you adieu.” With a fake, cheesy bow, he turned and walked away, leaving me to enter the room.

I opened the door, knocking on the frame to let the people inside know I was here. “Hello?”

The room wasn’t anything special, containing a dozen or so desks along with a large TV mounted in the back corner and posters of each of the local heroes spread out across each wall. There was very little color or decoration on the desks themselves; I wouldn't have connected it to somewhere devoted to appearances.

The room didn't have any people in it, except for one guy with dark hair and skin. He stood up from where he had been seated behind one of the desks. “Hey, how’s it going? My name’s Shane Lynch, I'll be leading the team responsible for introducing you to the public and keeping them happy with you while you're here. I've been cleared on your whole situation, and I kicked everybody else out, so you can speak freely if you want. Feel free to unmask if you'd be more comfortable.”

Finally! I pulled my hood back down as he walked over to another desk, pulling its wheely chair over in front of his. I'd been wearing it around all day, and as much as I loved that cloak I was much happier now that I could look around. I took the offered seat as he walked around as sat back down in his chair.

“So, before we start off, do you have any questions about what you've seen so far?” He asked.

“Yeah, actually. The Resource Managment guy mentioned that I had a meeting with somebody named Dragon tomorrow, and treated it like something special. Do you know what that's about?”

His eyebrows rose. “I hadn't heard about that, but I guess it makes sense. Dragon’s a Tinker, one of the best in the world. If anybody would be able to understand Haywire’s tech, it'd be her.   
Any other questions?”

“Just one more right now. This whole process feels rushed; is that normal, or do you guys want me on board faster for some reason?”

“That’s one I can’t answer for certain, I’m afraid. This is going awfully fast compared to the usual, but I couldn’t tell you why. I’m just a PR guy, they don't tell me that kind of thing. They only told me about your background so that I wouldn’t be caught off-guard by you not knowing everything you should when I’m prepping you for interviews and the like. If you’re curious about that, I’d say you should talk to the Director.”

Well then, that raised some questions. Best not to pry right now though; he was probably telling the truth about not knowing anything. “Alright, I’ll be sure to do that. That’s all the questions I have right now.”

“Cool. So typically, when a new cape joins up, we've got to balance their parahuman persona with their normal life. Making sure that their personality or appearance can't be used to make the connection between their personas, that kind of thing. With you though, we can skip a lot of that and get down to the PR. First things first, we've got to sort out your costume. From the rumors I heard, you do just fine fighting in that outfit, so I assume you'd prefer if we didn't change it that much?”

“I'd like that, yeah.” I wasn't all that happy to be handing over total control of my appearance to someone else, but I had kind of resigned myself to it; self-expression wasn’t nearly as important on Earth. I appreciated him giving me a say.

“We’ll need to get you an actual mask, but that outfit is already pretty distinguishable from everybody else on the team in profile. Speaking of the mask, do you have any preferences for that?”

The mask wasn’t something I had really considered; my hood had been serving just as well since I’d gotten here, but if I ended up in a fight more hectic than the one against the twin giants then there was still a chance of it coming undone. To be honest, I still didn’t see the point in covering my face at all, considering that I didn't have people to hide behind a civilian identity, and I'd be gone in a few months anyway, but everybody else had just been taking it for granted so I’d decided to roll with it.

“There is one thing… Back home, Huntsmen and Huntresses have unique symbols that make them recognizable. If I drew up mine, could you design a mask based on that pattern?”

He smiled. “I think we can manage that. If you want to draw that up while we talk, I should be able to get it worked into something in time for your press reveal.”

I nodded, and he opened a drawer on his desk, removing a box of colored pencils and a pad of paper. I wasn't a professional artist, but this was a symbol I had drawn thousands of times before. Everyone's symbol held personal meaning on Remnant; it was almost sacred. As a tradition, they were symbols of the creativity and self-expression that Huntsmen held in such high regard. I had created mine during my time at Signal Academy, then changed it a little bit after Salem’s fall. A stylized rose, to represent my name and my Semblance, traced with lines of silver to represent the power that had defeated the Grimm once and for all.

I started to draw, and Shane continued to talk. We discussed some of the slight changes that would need to be made to my uniform, slimming it down. While my power could affect pretty much anything I was wearing, several of the villains in this city could take advantage of loose clothing. Personally, I was pretty sure my Aura would keep that from happening, but after Shane told me about some of these people’s powers I could see why they wouldn’t want to take the risk. I managed to keep him from removing my cloak though; I could drop it in a hurry if it became a problem, and he accepted my argument that the color would make me more distinctive.

We wrapped up the discussion on my costume as another knock came from the door; after a moment, I recognized the silhouette of Resource Management Guy through the glass before I stepped to the side. Shane spoke up, “Ah, looks like your room’s ready now. I’ll just give you one more thing to think about, and you can tell me what you think tomorrow. What’s your name going to be? What’s the public going to see you as? We came up with some ideas that you can look over, and I might come up with more once I’ve seen your testing, but I’ll give you some time to figure out some of your own. Now there’s no guarantee we’ll use one you give us, but sometimes you’ll come up with one we haven’t.”

Right, I’ve gotta make my secret identity! Or, well, I guess my non-secret identity. Whichever. “I’ll make sure to do that. I’m supposed to get a… something that will let people send me messages, right? You can send me the list as soon as someone shows me how to use it?”

He nodded. “I’ll do that. We should speak again tomorrow, I’ll see you then.”

We shook hands, and I turned to leave.

“Uh, Ruby? Your hood?”

Oh right. “Thanks!” I pulled it over my head once more and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I managed to get this one done in time, but by the looks of things I've found my limit. I'm probably not going to be exceeding a chapter every three weeks for the foreseeable future. School has started back for me a well, so that will probably slow me down a bit too. I'm gonna call the next chapter for September 14th at the latest, while seeing if I can get it done sooner while juggling school at the same time.
> 
> A slightly shorter chapter this time; only partially caused by the short time limit. Not a huge amount of plot development, I know, but it sets some things up for the future. The next chapter will likely be a bit longer than normal, and then we'll have a pair of interludes to wrap up the arc.
> 
> See y'all next time!


	5. Seed 1-5

I woke up the next morning on an uncovered mattress in my new, very spartan bedroom. Grey walls, gray desk, gray bedframe, gray shelves. Nothing you’d ever see on Remnant.

Ah well. I could deal with it long enough to get out of here.

I'd been left here last night with toiletries and a few changes of clothes, and been told that someone would come get me in the morning. For the time being though, they probably wouldn't be happy with me just wandering around the base, so I'd be staying in here. I showered and changed, and looking like I just robbed a gift shop I had to figure out what to do next.

Crescent Rose was still gone, so I couldn't run her maintenance yet. An investigation of the desk drawers revealed nothing but typical office supplies and a calendar, which raised even more questions. Why would the names of the months be the same, but the days of the week be different? They were close enough to be recognizable, but the changes threw me off kilter. Taiday became Tuesday, Figday became Friday; it made for yet another reminder of just where I wasn't.

I got saved from trying to redirect that train of thought by a knock on the door. I put on the hood, then opened it up to find Challenger, somehow giving off an impression of cheerfulness despite his featureless silver mask.

“Hey there, everything been going alright?”

Gotta be careful with questions like this. Let’s see… yeah, he knows everything. “I’ve been better, still getting used to all this. I think all of… this is starting to hit me.”

He hummed. “All us Protectorate members get looked at by a psychologist every so often to make sure we’re staying, y’know, sane? The Director could probably set you up with a session ahead of schedule if you asked.”

...Huh. That wouldn’t be my first time with a psychologist - Jaune spent a lot of time convincing me to visit one during our stay in Haven - but it wasn’t something I’d considered here. I hummed, then grinned, shaking off the negativity. “Anyway, enough of all that, what’ve I got for today?”

He looked at me for a second. I got the impression he was about to say something, but changed his mind at the last moment. He spoke for real a moment later; “First thing on your schedule is power testing. You probably know what your limits are, but the PRT likes to have hard numbers for things.”

We started walking again, turning right and heading back for the elevators. He continued; “This won’t be in-depth though, it’s just a preliminary. There'll be a more complex one in the future.”

We kept walking, discussing the specifics of what would be involved. Challenger’s own initial testing was different from what mine would be because of the differences in our powers, but he was able to give me a general idea. 

We traveled down an elevator, and left it to find an open cube, twenty or thirty yards to a side. The floor was taken up by gym equipment, a boxing ring, and a shooting range - if it hadn't been for the upper floors, it would have looked like a normal gym. Above all of that though, things were different. Multiple levels of catwalks rose up to the ceiling, plus a bunch of metal hoops welded to the wall and a ropes course up near the top.

Armsmaster was waiting for us as we entered, wearing an odd combination of his helmet and visor above typical gym attire, his halberd somehow balanced on one end as he leaned against it. Behind him, I saw a group of people in lab coats in a room mounted halfway up the back wall.

Armsmaster spoke: “Thank you for meeting me here. The technicians aren’t cleared on your identity, so we’ll be calling you Scythe until your name gets decided. Does that work for you?”

I nodded. “Yep! So… what should I do first?” 

A new voice suddenly filled the room. “First thing would be to tell us what exactly you can do. We’ve got to know what we’re testing for before we test you on it. In detail, please.” It took me a moment to realize that the speaker was one of the people in the upper room.

“Okay. Uh, well, the most important thing would be my Aura. It’s sort of like a forcefield that sits a couple inches away from my skin, but I can stretch it away from me if I need to. I can also tell when something’s about to hit it if I need to dodge or block the hit.”

“Does that work if you don’t know the attacker is there?” That was Armsmaster.

“Yeah? If anything’s about to damage my Aura, I just sort of know where it’s going to hit and sort of how much damage it would do. So if somebody’s about to shoot me, I can move my scythe so it’s in the path of the bullet, or I can use my other power on the part of me that’s about to get hit so the bullet just goes through me.”

“Combat precog, plus a forcefield. That’d be pretty powerful on its own, but you have other powers on top of that?” Back to the lab coats.

“Yeah. This one might be easier to just show you though.”

Armsmaster nodded and stepped back. I heard Challenger do the same behind me. Once they’d stepped back, I scattered, then shot upward, reforming in a three-point-stance on one of the catwalks before launching forward again. I canceled out my momentum and launched in a different direction, making a sharp right angle in an instant, phasing around a railing in the process and crossing the gap to the next platform over.

From there, I scattered again and fell through the floor, dropping to the middle of an intersection on the lower level. I spread my Aura, shooting off a cloud of petals in each direction. Each of the decoys stopped a few yards away from the center, as my Aura stretched to its limit. If this had been an actual fight, I wouldn’t have risked spreading my defenses so thinly, but it worked for stuff like this.

I stayed there for a second, then snapped to the location of one of the decoys. The other three disappeared behind me as I zipped off again. I finished it off by flying a bunch of quick circles in the empty air, slowly floating down as I stretched my aura again, reappearing on the ground instead of visibly moving down. I rematerialized in the three-point pose that you saw in just about every comic book ever.

It struck me that being on a team with Weiss for so many years had apparently made it way easier to show off.

I looked up to find Challenger clapping, the technicians buzzing around in their room... and Armsmaster simply staring, body language unreadable. 

A new voice came through the speakers; “Preemptive ratings are going to be mid-brute, mid-thinker, mid-breaker, mid-mover, low-stranger. Armsmaster, anything to add from down there?”

“We should test the exact strength of your… Aura,” he responded, “but the other ratings should be adequate for the moment. Before we do that, are there any weaknesses we should know about? I’d rather not accidentally hurt you.” He grabbed his halberd and spun it as it reconfigured into a sphere, snapping out on the end of a piston.

I gulped.

-

“Ooooowww,” I complained, recovering from another hit. my Scroll wasn’t working without access to the CCT, so apparently, the only way they could test the strength of my field was by having Armsmaster hit me over and over again and see how much damage I took. At least I’d been able to dodge when they were testing my reaction time.

“Where are you at now?” His voice had been getting more and more exasperated since we started. He’d started out light, and been gradually increasing in power with each hit. At first, they hadn’t been much worse than a good punch, but that one was pretty close in force to a particularly large bullet.

“That one did some damage. Feels like I’m down around a quarter of my total?” Luckily, I was able to get a rough sense of how much I had left.

Armsmaster addressed the techs; “Down from a third. That should be all we need, then. Mark Scythe down as a Brute four, Thinker four, and we should be done for now.”

Finally! Aura made sure I wasn’t being seriously hurt by any of that, but it didn’t exactly make it fun, either.

“So we’re done here, then?” I asked the room.

Armsmaster turned to face me. “For now. We’ll be going more in-depth in the future, but right now I believe you have a call waiting.” He tilted his halberd in the direction of Challenger, who was walking up to us.

“Yep, Dragon’s waiting upstairs. You ready to go?”

-

“Hello Ruby,” came a voice from the terminal. A woman’s face appeared a moment later. You could tell it was fake, but it still moved like it was real. 

“Hello. You’re Dragon, I guess?”

The face on the terminal smiled. “Yes, that would be me. I’m the Tinker that has access to Professor Haywire’s technology.”

Ah! That would explain it. “So you can get me back home?”

Her smile changed. It seemed a little more forced now. “It’s… a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid. Unlike most Tinkers, I can understand how Haywire’s technology worked, but that doesn’t help us on the legal side of things.”

“Legal side? What does that mean?”

Dragon responded, “You’ve heard about our contact with Earth Aleph, right?” I nodded, and she continued. “Well, when Haywire first punched the hole, both sides were worried about a war. The temptation of an entire planet full of resources might have eventually spilled over for one side or the other, and no matter which side ended up winning it wouldn’t be pretty. They ended up stuffing the hole full of concrete from both sides, to try and keep anyone from ever crossing over again.”

“Okay, I get why that could be a problem, but what does that have to do with me? Can’t you just do the same thing with a portal back to Remnant?”

“We could…” Her face fell, “if we were allowed to open one in the first place. Since the hole got filled, it became illegal to travel, contact, or otherwise interfere with parallel worlds.”

What? That doesn’t… Couldn’t she just?

Dragon must’ve seen my rising panic, and she spoke up before I could come up with a response. “No Ruby, it’s alright! It’s not hopeless yet. It’s possible that we could get the law changed, but even if we manage it…” She trailed off.

“It’s going to take a while.”

“Exactly. I’m sorry, Ruby, but that’s just the best I can do.”

Okay. I was gonna need to decorate my room at some point. That probably shouldn’t have been my first thought, but it was easier to focus on that than anything else. Still, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been! I was still getting home, I’d just have to stick around for… 

“How long do you think that’s going to take?”

“...I truly am sorry Ruby, but I’m going to be honest with you. I can’t say for sure. It could be months, it could be years, or it might not work at all.”

Right. Okay, this will be fine. I can deal with this. I’m still gonna be helping people, that’s what’s really important, right?

When I didn’t respond, Dragon continued. “I’ll keep you apprised of my progress if you’d like.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks, Dragon.” I paused for a moment. “Did you need anything else?”

Her expression settled back to a small smile. “No, that’s all for now. I’ll probably contact you again in the future to discuss your weapon - I have some questions about those ‘Dust rounds’ - but I’ll let you get settled in your position before we get into that.”

We said our goodbyes, and I turned to reopen the door. Challenger was waiting outside once again.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Not great. “Well, I might be staying here for longer than I thought. Turns out it’s against the law to go to parallel worlds, so I’m stuck here until it’s not.”

He didn’t respond at first. We kept walking, and as we reached the elevator he finally spoke up; “This is kind’ve outside my area of expertise, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry”

“Eh, it’s not your fault, I’m fine. Got other stuff to think about right now, anyway. It’s time for me to meet everybody that I haven’t yet, right?”

He looked at me again, tilting his head to one side. “Yeah, that’s right. You’ve got a few hours until your clearance comes through and we can start briefing you on everything, so until then you'll be meeting the teams.”

“Perfect!” He was still giving me that odd look. Couldn't he see I was fine? “Is there anybody I should watch out for?”

-

“No, wait, go back. How’d he get away with calling himself Clockblocker?” We were both laughing by now.

“He - whew - he managed to trick the PR gang. They decided on the name Stopwatch, then he convinced them to let him give the name to the media during his introduction.”

Hah! Yang is gonna love hearing about this kid. “He’s gonna be someone to watch out for, isn’t he?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. Last time a Ward joined, he acted like he was going to shake their hand, then froze them mid-shake., She’s hated him ever since.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened a minute later. Assault was waiting on the other side, along with a handful of others. Two were women, one in a bodysuit covered in softly glowing lines and the other in military camouflage with a colorful scarf and sash. The remaining two were men, one costumed in skintight red with racing stripes and the other wearing stylized plate armor with brightly glowing boots. I gave that last one a double-take; his armor looked Mistrali, almost like the pictures you’d see in museums of one of their footsoldiers in the Great War, but older, fancier, less practical. It wasn’t the best of connotations.

The flashbang-bright glowing boots and the cartoonishly tiny shield kind of broke the effect though.

The camouflaged woman stepped forward. She was the only one here that was obviously armed, at a glance. “Welcome to Protectorate HQ, ah…”

Challenger spoke up behind me. “Scythe, until we finalize an actual name. Are the Wards not coming?”

Mistral-guy answered, “Still in school right now, they’ll be out in time for the inauguration.” He moved a step away from the group. “From what I heard, you’re not going to know who we are just by sight, so…” His posture shifted into what I’m sure was meant to be an impressive defensive stance. It got a little cooler when the forcefield bubble snapped into place around him, crackling and sparking where it met the floor.

“You can call me Dauntless.” His voice had gotten deeper too. The whole performance would have seemed impressive when I was younger, but now it just felt condescending.

They weren’t all that way, though. The military woman gave a more subtle demonstration of her power, the pistol at her hip dematerializing into a glowy green-black cloud, and reformed as a knife on the other side as she shot a quick glare at Dauntless. “I’m Miss Militia, these are Velocity, Battery, and you already know Assault,” she said, gesturing first at the man in the racing stripes, then the woman with the glowing lines. Velocity waved and Battery nodded.

Assault glanced in their direction, then shot me a finger-gun.

“And I’m… I guess Scythe, for now.” This codename stuff was going to get on my nerves. “That should change pretty soon, I guess.” Nobody talked for a second. Dang it Ruby, you let the conversation trail off again!

“Why Scythe?” That was Battery, breaking the awkward silence from over in the corner. I liked her already.

“Well, I didn’t exactly choose it. I actually don’t know who started it, but it’s because of my weapon. I… guess Armsmaster still has it. I haven’t had a chance to get it back since he looked it over.” I’d better get her back in one piece, or we were gonna have a problem.

“That’s not surprising.” Miss Militia again. “Piggot has everyone burning the candle at both ends to get you inducted ASAP - something about publicly announcing you before any of the higher-ups can do anything about it. I can’t say I know what this is all about, but it’s caused some confusion either way. Worst case scenario, you get it back once everything has calmed down. I am surprised that a name hasn’t been finalized yet though - do you have one in mind?”

Shane had asked that question too, and it was a hard one. Names were really important, so even before I knew I’d be stuck here I’d known that this would take some thought. However, after sleeping on it and exercising my Semblance during testing it came to me. I’d always used the word ‘scatter’ in relation to my power. I never really thought about why; maybe I was somehow linking my Semblance to my mother’s, connecting it to the text on her gravestone; but whatever the case, it simply felt right to call it that. The name needed to reference that, and to be honest, the word didn’t need to change that much to work.

“I’m thinking… Scatter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, I've gotta apologize here. I realize it's only a day late, but it really annoys me that, even with another slightly shorter chapter than normal, I messed this up. School's started back, and the last week or so has been busier than I expected, so I didn't plan well enough. On the other hand, I can hopefully channel that frustration into writing more in the future, so we'll see how that goes.
> 
> In more positive news, we're through the standard chapters for Arc 1! I've got interludes lined up for the next two chapters, so you should be seeing things from Piggot's perspective next time. Speaking of which, I'm going to plan out my writing better this time now that I have some idea of what I'm doing, so you should see that chapter on October 12th.
> 
> I'll hopefully see you then!


	6. Seed 1-i

The door to her office closed, and Director Emily Piggot leaned back in her seat. Of all the cities she could have... complicated, Ruby Rose had to show up in Brockton Bay.

Not that that was entirely a bad thing. She had Challenger making a recruitment speech, after all. This city needed more capes, no matter what the other directors claimed. The relative peace of the last several months was just the calm before the storm, and another Protectorate member was always a great help - especially with Challenger’s upcoming transfer, and especially when that new hero was as powerful as this one seemed to be. Fenja and Menja weren’t pushovers, and not only had Rose held her own against the pair of them simultaneously for as long as twenty minutes, but she had even driven them into retreat. The timing of her appearance could not have been more perfect.

That being said, this was hardly a typical recruitment attempt. Even ignoring the girl’s extradimensional origin, she carried a scythe that was bigger than she was, and if the Twins’ injuries said anything, then it was exactly as deadly as it looked. That was not a view that the public would appreciate.

Her origin made the whole situation even more complicated.

She picked up the phone and dialed, double-checking the unfamiliar number before confirming the call. This wasn’t someone that she dialed often.

“Hello? This is Piggot, I believe the chief director is expecting my call. M/S code: goliard, nine-five, multifid.”

There was a click in response, then a voice. “What do you have for me?”

Straight to the point, as was usual. “If she’s to be believed, I don’t think we have anything to fear from a large-scale invasion, though we may see others coming through. Apparently, she was brought here by an opponent of hers, who used a portal-spawning power to send her here after beating her in a fight.”

“Can you confirm that she’s telling the truth?” ...Was that hesitation? It wasn’t much, a pause just a fraction of a second longer than normal, but it said quite a bit coming from Costa-Brown.

“Armsmaster carries a lie detector as a standard part of his equipment, he would have alerted me if any part of her story set it off. He did leave the room during the conversation, but I’ll have him go over my office recording to see if he can find anything. He’s currently looking at her technology, confirming that it actually is extradimensional.”

“Make sure that he does,” the director responded. “I don’t have to tell you how important this is.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“One more thing. Alexandria will be paying Brockton Bay a visit the day after tomorrow. She has orders to speak with Miss Rose and obtain more information than she’s been willing to give us previously.”

That was not good news. Piggot wanted that information as well, but if one of the most powerful capes in the Protectorate wanted to talk to Rose, it would save time to simply use a video call. If she was coming here herself, then she had another motive in mind, one presumably involving Ruby. The best case scenario would be Rose being shipped off to some other city - and in the worst case, she’d be kept away from the public entirely, no help to anyone. 

_I might not be particularly fond of capes, but I’m not stupid enough to think that this country doesn’t need all the heroes it can get._

Still, it wouldn’t do to complain about that to her superior. She’d have to fight this more indirectly. “Understood ma’am. I take it that Rose shouldn’t find out about this?”

“I believe Alexandria would prefer she didn’t. Now, unless there’s anything else?”

“I do have one more question.” It wasn’t likely this would change anything, but it was worth it to try. “Has there been any change with Challenger?”

“I’m afraid not. His transfer is still in-process. Brockton’s been quiet for the past few months, Boston needs him more than you do.”

“That won't be true for long. We caught Kaiser’s bodyguards today, so the Empire’s as weak as it's ever been. Someone is going to take advantage, and it's going to happen soon.”

“Even if you knew that for certain - which you don't, considering what I know of Kaiser’s diplomatic skill - it hasn't happened yet. Emily, Boston is in an uproar, and the way things are going now they're going to need a new face on the team permanently.”

Piggot sighed inaudibly. “Understood. If you'll excuse me, I have preparations to make.”

“Of course.” The call clicked off, and she set it back on its base.

Piggot stayed where she was for a moment, thinking. Challenger was one of the more powerful capes on her roster, and she would prefer not to lose him. Normally, the way this situation had progressed, she'd be out of luck. Rose’s appearance, however, had given her more options.

She reached for the intercom. “Tell Renick that I need him in my office, ASAP.”

Deputy Director Bruce Renick entered a few minutes later. She'd originally chosen the man for personal reasons, to balance out what she saw as her own flaws, but over the years he had shown a great deal of talent when it came to the fine details of navigating the PRT’s bureaucracy.

“Alexandria will be paying us a visit in two days, and I think it’s likely that she intends to poach Rose from us,” she told him, not wasting their limited time with pleasantries.

Renick responded immediately, “I take it you have a plan?”

“Yes. If we introduce and endear the girl to Brockton Bay’s public before any transfer goes through, then Costa-Brown won't be able to move her without kicking up a fuss with the public. She doesn't want that kind of PR, so she should be forced to keep her here.”

Renick winced. “It won't be easy on that timescale.” That much was obvious. What the Triumvirate lacked in official authority, they more than made up for in influence. Theoretically, a PRT director outranked them, but few had the clout to tell the strongest heroes in the world no. “We don’t even know that she plans to enlist yet.”

“Then we need to hurry. Challenger should still have his earpiece in; I'm going to have him speed up the recruitment pitch and get her onboard. You get all relevant departments into gear - I want her inducted by the end of tomorrow and introduced to the media the following morning - before Alexandria arrives. Use your best judgment to decide who needs to know her origin, but keep it tight and have anyone that's not cleared for secret identities sign NDAs.”

He nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

As he left the room, Piggot took a breath, then reached for the phone once again. Things were about to get busy around here.

-

“We're going to need a plan for her weapon,” Armsmaster spoke.

It had been sixteen hours since Rose had first made her appearance, the girl herself asleep in her temporary quarters. Armsmaster and Shane Lynch were standing in Piggot's office, and the three were in the midst of an update on Ruby's induction. Armsmaster was in full costume, sans the helmet sitting on his chair, and Lynch was wearing the same suit he had been yesterday, likely not having had time to go home and change.

Lynch’s brow furrowed. “That was another thing I wanted to discuss with you both. I just saw the recording a couple hours ago, and that scythe could cause some problems with the public if it's not done right.”

Piggot spoke up, "Armsmaster, you analyzed it, what can you tell us?"

Armsmaster paused for a moment, then started speaking evenly; “Scatter made her first appearance carrying a very large scythe. It’s taller and longer than she is, sharp enough to bite through titanium and contains what I suspect to be a small railgun built into the staff. It's also capable of collapsing down on itself into a more portable form not much bigger than a large briefcase. It’s Tinkertech, and it’s obviously deadly enough that I cannot recommend allowing her to carry it around on day-to-day patrols."

Shane glanced up toward the ceiling in thought. “Alright, we can work around that. We can keep her from carrying it on her patrols, but if what I've heard from security she might not be pleased.”

“We’ll need to make a choice between her preferences and the public’s safety. It seems like the choice is clear.”

Piggot chose that moment to interject. None of them had gotten sleep last night. “Lynch, you’re right that she won’t need it from day-to-day, but if losing it would cause friction then we can find a compromise. Armsmaster, could the blade be blunted without disturbing its other functions?”

His reply came a moment later. “...I believe so.”

“That should do nicely then. Blunt the blade, make it clear that it has been blunted, and then confiscate the ammunition for use during S- and A-class emergencies. Does everyone find that acceptable?”

Lynch and Armsmaster shared a glance.

“...I don't see a problem with that.”

Armsmaster merely nodded.

-

“What!? Why?”

Piggot supposed she should have expected that reaction. The girl had been loath to give up her weapon even temporarily, she couldn’t possibly have been pleased to learn that it would be different when she got it back. She heard the clicking of Armsmaster shifting position behind her, in reaction to the outburst.

“The public wouldn’t be pleased to see one of their heroes carrying obviously lethal weaponry outside of an active fight. You can still use it, it will just be easier to keep from killing anyone.”

Was that offense on her face? “I’ve never killed anyone with Crescent Rose that didn-” She paused, just for a second, as she seemed to rethink her words. “That I didn’t mean to.” What had she been going to say? Didn’t what? Ruby continued, “I’ve been using her since I was thirteen years old, I know what I’m doing!”

“That might be the case, but the public doesn't know that, and will have no reason to believe it. Your origin is classified, and no one’s going to believe that you managed to learn to do that if they’ve never heard of you before. We’re introducing you as someone who very recently received and started using her powers, so why and how would you have learned to use a weapon like that before gaining them?” 

“But that’s true! I didn’t find my Semblance until almost a year after building Crescent Rose.”

She built and used this weapon before gaining powers? At that age? “That might be true, but people won’t believe that here. You aren’t on your own world anymore, and from what you’ve told us so far, the rules on Remnant are different. No Earth twelve-year-old could ever possibly build or operate a weapon like that with no powers.” She didn’t truly believe that it was possible on Remnant either, but that was beside the point. 

Scatter was about to object again, but Piggot didn’t have time to bother with debating this. She continued, “You’re missing context. Parahumans are still new to our world - people aren’t used to them. As far as the public is concerned, heroes and villains are curiosities. Perhaps they can be frightening, but the average citizen doesn’t consider the average cape to be a serious threat to their wellbeing - at least until that cape is standing in front of them.” Scatter gave the most incredulous look there, and was about to say something before Piggot cut her off: “If the heroes start carrying around weapons like that,” she gestured at the item in question, “on simple patrols, then people will begin to wonder what we are expecting to fight that makes a weapon like that necessary.”

That gave the girl pause. She spoke, almost under her breath, “and we don’t want to cause a panic.” She gave Piggot a look, as if searching for something in her expression. After a moment, she clenched a fist and looked her in the eyes.

“Alright, I can use non-lethal ammo, but I’m not going to blunt Crescent Rose. There are people out there who I will need that edge to stand against, and not having it in the field could get me, or my teammates, killed.”

That was an excellent attitude, and one that she would have been glad to have on the team if it weren’t for the reason for this entire conversation. The problem wasn’t solved entirely yet, but this was better than before.

“That only solves half the problem.”

Scatter’s eyes widened, and she grinned wide. “Actually, I think I have a better idea.” She reached across the desk, sending large, colorful cartridges rolling across the bench. Grabbing a yellow one, she set to work extricating the bullet from its casing, then closed her fist around the inch-and-a-half long crystal. “I’ll need some time to figure out how to manage it though, so can we wait until I have a chance to put it together? Oh, and I might need some of Armsmaster’s help to do it.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable, if Armsmaster agrees?” She turned the sentence into a question, glancing over at the man across the workbench. He didn’t look pleased, but he nodded his assent.

“I’ll do what I’m able." He looked to Rose, "Keep in mind that I will only have so much time to dedicate to this."

Rose nodded, seemingly lost in thought as she stared at the crystal. 

-

“Everyone, final reports?”

Piggot entered the conference room, where the heads of each department were seated around a table. Armsmaster, wearing his armor, stood with his back to the right wall.

Lynch spoke up first. “It's been a hectic couple of days, but we should be good to go. Her costume’s been prepped, and it should fit well enough until we get the chance to make the final alterations.”

So far, so good. “I assume we’ve picked a name?”

He nodded. “She chose ‘Scatter.' It fits her powers, but not so much it gives anything away, and it's marketable." 

“That will do. Is everything settled with the media?”

Pattie Moss, head of Public Relations, answered that one. “Yep! We’ll be live at ten-fifteen tomorrow, interviews have been scheduled, speeches have been written, and my internet people have been told what questions they can and can’t answer. Everything should be ready for the big day!”

“Excellent work, Pattie.” The woman beamed as Piggot looked towards another head. “What about her induction?”

It was Renick who spoke up now from the other side of the table. “The paperwork is being filed, but we can't control how fast it moves once it leaves the building. I’m doing what I can, but I doubt she’ll be a full, legal member by tomorrow.”

That wasn’t optimal, but it shouldn't cause major problems. This department had almost fully enlisted a new cape less than two days after her first appearance in the city - that was impressive enough to be worthy of praise, even if not every detail was finalized in that timeframe. “That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Right now, the important thing is that the public knows that she’s here, and all going according to plan, they will know that tomorrow."

There were sounds of agreement around the table.

"Alright then. Renick, as soon as she's official, work with Armsmaster to slot her into patrol schedules. Everybody go home, get some rest. Good work."

-

“As you may recall from this past Sunday, Fenja and Menja of the Empire Eighty-Eight have been placed into custody.”

Polite applause came from the audience.

The man at the podium in front of her continued, voice amplified to fill the room; “What you may not know is that there was a previously-unknown cape who was involved in the fight which led to these villains’ capture.”

Showmanship. Anybody who followed cape news was aware of that - some idiot civilian had decided to stay behind and record the fight, and his video had been making the rounds across internet boards, magazines, and tabloid news. Nonetheless, it was important. Her department had to build up the narrative, introduce new capes as if they were characters in a play.

“Today, we finally get the chance to introduce you to this new hero.”

Try desperately to conceal the true extent of the threat that villains and even heroes posed.

“Brockton Bay: I’d like you to meet Scatter.”

Piggot looked up, over the crowd. From her seat on the stage, she could see what the crowd couldn’t as a silhouette disappeared from the top of the overhang. Everyone saw what came next though, as a wave of rose petals swept through the air above the crowd, crashing against the stage. A swirl of red, and there she stood, black and red costume topped by a smooth, ovoid mask. 

Applause and cheers echoed through the room.

This was why her department had spent almost forty-eight straight hours working out how this reveal would happen. This city was going to need this morale boost in the very near future, and it was her job to ensure that it didn’t lose faith.

She watched as Scatter gave the audience a demonstration of her powers, dashing from place to place around the podium and the stage. Classified material aside, she was practically perfect from a PR standpoint. A powerful, non-lethal ability that she used with a great deal of skill, combined with a relatable personality. With the possible exception of Challenger, no other member of the Protectorate had that combination naturally. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by another round of applause as the demonstration finished and the girl stepped up to the microphone. A canned speech followed - one of a variety of ‘fill-in-the-blank’ style statements given to capes who weren’t totally comfortable writing their own. They’d work her into the habit over time - relatable and confident weren’t always synonymous.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the silenced buzzing of her phone in her pocket. Her people knew better than to message her during a media appearance unless it was an emergency. Surreptitiously checking it so the crowd couldn’t see, she saw the reason for the urgency:

_B. Renick_

_Alexandria is in your office._

That was unexpected. She wasn’t meant to arrive for several more hours. Doubtless, she saw the news broadcasts and decided to advance the schedule. It didn’t really matter. Triumvirate member or not, she didn’t have the authority to order her out of this mid-event.

She’d still make the trip back to her office quickly though. Rank aside, one did not keep the strongest woman in the world waiting for any longer than necessary.

-  
“Director Piggot.”

“Alexandria.”

This was the first time that the pair of them had met in-person. They had met occasionally in the past, but that hadn’t quite prepared her for the impact the woman could have when she wanted to. It seemed that the ability to fly at Mach 10, crack a city with a single punch, and ignore the explosion of a small nuclear bomb did a lot for one’s presence.

Piggot waited for the woman to speak. She had already angered the cape enough, and Alexandria held an unfortunate amount of pull in the organization.

“I’m going to be meeting with your newest recruit later today. What can you tell me about her?”

Straight to business. That would make this easier. “She’s eager, cheerful, but often seems to forget that she’s lacking a great deal of context. She was a member of what seems to be her world’s equivalent of the Protectorate, but the differences between the two realities are extreme enough that I expect some psychological difficulties.”

“How extreme?”

Now here came the interesting part. “We don’t know much yet, but what we have learned is... worrying. They have had parahumans for significantly longer than we have, and the organization that controls them seems to be much more regimented and militant than the Protectorate, thanks to an unknown period of time of at least several centuries spent defending against an endless army of fairytale monsters. They’re more advanced than we are technologically, and each parahuman has a secondary set of effective defensive abilities that she referred to as Aura. If their world as a whole discovers - or has discovered - our own, I cannot imagine that we don’t make a tempting target.”

“If you believe that she is such a threat, why did you recruit her?”

“I doubt she intends any harm personally. She seems to genuinely want to help; Armsmaster has a lie detector built into his helmet, and it didn’t detect any attempts to mislead us or hide anything, excepting her exact method of arrival.”

At Alexandria’s raised eyebrow, she continued, “She refused to give details, and I elected to let it be for that moment. From what she did tell us, a power-boosting Trump fell into the hands of a portal-maker, who then gained the ability to make portals through dimensions. Rose was sent here while attempting to retrieve the Trump, though the specifics are, apparently, classified."

Alexandria nodded, apparently satisfied. She spoke again, “Inform Scatter that I would like a meeting as soon as possible.”

“Done. Is there anything else?”

“Yes, actually. Regarding Challenger’s impending transfer to Boston.” 

Piggot had been hoping that she hadn’t found out about that. “I’ve discussed the compromise with Director Armstrong, and he’s amenable.”

“I’m aware. I’d like to hear your reasoning.”

“Boston already has a forcefielder in Bastion, giving them Challenger would be redundant. They don’t, however, have an effective Mover, and Brockton Bay has just recruited a second speedster.”

The woman seemed to consider that for a moment. Piggot knew capes, and this woman was probably not willing to do her any favors. She could perhaps be inclined to sabotage this if she didn’t accept the justification.

Finally, she spoke up. “Fine. I’ll recommend that the Chief Director approve the transfer.” That seemed entirely too easy. “Contact Scatter, tell her to meet me in conference room six as soon as she’s able.”

With that, Alexandria left the room. Piggot could honestly say she hadn’t expected that, but then it likely wasn’t the end of this. The woman would be getting something out of this scenario; even without Scatter, she was smart enough to find something that worked out in her favor, and odds were it would come back to bite Piggot herself.

More complications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm going to plan out my writing better this time now that I have some idea of what I'm doing, so you should see that chapter on October 12th."
> 
> So... yeah. That just didn't happen at all, did it? (He says, 197 days later.) Real life interrupted, and it seriously kicked me off the semi-flow I had going. Everything just kinda went to crap after that. To be quite honest, I'm not happy with this chapter (or this arc), but if I don't put it out now then I don't think I'm ever going to. I might come back and rewrite it in the future, but I need to get past it for the moment.
> 
> Luckily, I already have the next chapter finished and partially edited, and work on the one after that has been started, so you can expect more updates in the very near future. The next one is a surprise interlude, and the one after that will kick off the next arc.
> 
> Some canonicity stuff; Since the last chapter, Ward has become a thing, as has RWBY volume five. The former hasn't changed much in terms of the plotline (though the likely upcoming Boston Games arc will probably break some stuff I had planned), but the latter gave us some solid explanations on how Remnant works that break some of the assumptions I was working on for this fic. In general, assume that this is only totally canon-compliant for RWBY up through the end of V4. The events of volume five went... similarly, but with a few changes, most of which should be fairly apparent based on what's been brought up so far. Mechanics-wise, this story has more or less explained how Aura works for its purposes, and not much else has changed, so there shouldn't be major problems there.
> 
> I think that's all I wanted to say here, so have some serious thanks for sticking around, and I'll see y'all next time!
> 
> (Oh wait, one more thing: Literally everyone complained about the name Scatterer, so I went back and edited the last chapter to the much less terrible Scatter. Thank you all for the input!)


	7. Seed 1-r

The greatsword came in from the left, the warscythe swept down from above. She rolled to the right, firing a shell towards the scythe-user. The recoil pushed her away, and she fired again as she came up, the shot detonating in the face of the boy running towards her. The explosion launched her back at greatsword kid, who brought up his weapon just in time to deflect her punch, being knocked back instead of out.

The fight paused, each combatant taking stock. Yang Xiao Long glanced over at the board, noting the Aura levels of herself and her opponents.

_Team One:_

_Yang Xiao Long - 77%_

_Team SSAF:_

_Spencer Olate - 65%_

_Samantha Copper - 89%_

_Azure Holland - 79%_

_Jerome Foil - 81%_

Jerome had more aura remaining than she would have expected after that explosion. Was that just a big Aura pool, or a sign of his Semblance?

The fight resumed. Samantha, snapped a long, metallic whip towards her as Jerome threw one of his hammers from the other direction. Yang lept over them, firing her gauntlets beneath her as she flipped in mid-air, landing on top of the team’s leader - the greatsword wielder who had tried to engage her single-handedly.

Spencer was overconfident. She’d seen his records, he had been at the top of his grade at Shelter, but he didn’t seem to grasp that nearly everyone here was of his caliber, and many were even better. Beacon was the most prestigious academy on the planet, and with the downsizing of the Huntsmen after the fall of Salem, only the best of the best were being accepted - both as students and as teachers. The sooner he learned that he wasn’t quite as invincible as he thought he was, the better off he’d be.

He jumped back, and the machine gun built into his crossguard fired. He was sent spinning with far more force than its size should have allowed. Yang stepped into his spin, blocking his attack and halting stopping him cold with a single upraised hand. As the blade slammed into her prosthetic arm and Spencer reeled, she felt the telltale flaring of Aura that signified an incoming attack, exactly as expected. A well-timed moment later, she ducked, letting Azure fly over her and accidentally tackle her team leader out of the arena. They hit the ground with a booming thud.

Azure was overeager. When Spencer tried to fight her single-handedly, Azure had come in from the other direction, inserting her help where it wasn’t wanted. It had saved her leader from his own mistake, but it hadn’t always worked out for her in the past - she had, in her third year at Signal, made major changes to the design of her weapon, trying to learn an entirely new fighting style in the middle of the year. Apparently, it was an attempt to imitate, of all people, Yang’s own sister. When she had, eventually, thought through her decision, she had made another change to the design, ending up on a compromise between the original look and the new one. However, that was just one example of a long history of poorly-thought-through decisions that would hurt her when one went bad. She would need to learn to think through her actions if she was ever going to succeed.

Samantha and Jerome skidded to a stop. They exchanged glances, creating a new plan without ever speaking a word. Samantha snapped her whip again, which crackled and popped with electricity as Jerome started running off to the side as if trying to get past her. The ploy was clever - Make it seem as though Samantha is the distraction, so that she goes after Jerome instead, turning him into a momentary punching bag while his partner caught here from behind. Best to reward tactical thinking and teamwork. She didn’t want to make it too easy for them though… a change in tactics should do the trick.

She ran for Jerome, collapsing her gauntlet back into bracelet form. As she ran, she checked the Aura gauge again: _54%._ Stopping that sword must have taken out a bigger chunk than she thought. Still, it wasn’t much of a problem. As her target shifted, bracing for the impact, she tapped into her own Semblance. The air around her began to heat up, and in the corners of her vision, her hair began to glow. Her next step set off an explosion, and she was thrown into the air above him.

As she came down, his hammer went up, and she allowed it to connect with her leg, mostly to see what would happen. The face of the hammer exploded on impact, an energy field snapping up to shape the explosion away from him and into her. She rode it up and away, landing several feet to his left, then ducking into a roll as Copper’s whip whistled over her head.

Jerome and Samantha were longtime friends, partners at Signal. The pair were strong, easily among the top of their class, especially when they were working together, but they didn’t trust their new teammates. Yang knew for a fact that they could have stopped the other two from going over the edge if they’d wanted to. Instead, they decided to let them go, probably deciding that the other pair would only get in their way. 

Yang was forced to redirect, extending the shotgun from her prosthetic and firing forward. She jerked backward just in time to avoid the whip, which had suddenly changed directions mid-air, and was now homing in on her, sparking all the way.

She expanded her gauntlet as well, launching herself toward Jerome, guessing that his partner wouldn’t risk attacking with him in the line of fire. He swung down, and she ducked under his guard, leading into an exchange of a half-dozen attacks, parries, and counterattacks. A punch was followed by a shotgun blast, both of which were stopped by a last-second defensive barrier, but the sudden kicks to both of his sides went unpredicted and unblocked. 

He swung again with both hammers, one swinging up, the other from the side, as she jumped, focusing more heat out of her Semblance to give her a bit more height as she landed on top of his weapon. Her other foot planted on his shoulder, she jumped off of him, spinning around to kick him in the head as she landed, blasting herself back in his direction.

Samantha, realizing that Jerome wouldn’t be able to knock her away, took the initiative. The whip spun around her as she charged, ready to intercept any incoming attacks. Yang tried to keep Jerome between herself and the whip, but it seemed to snake around him with a mind of its own, lunging for her fast enough that she barely raised her prosthetic in time to block. _Perfect._ As the whip shifted, blades sliding down and biting into her, she suppressed her aura around the arm and began winding the whip around it.

It didn’t take long for her opponent to realize what she was doing, and the whip started violently thrashing, the sparking increasing rapidly. At the same time, Jerome was recovering and preparing for a finishing blow. Yang felt her aura drop with every spark and struggled to keep the weapon contained as she tied it off. She needed to end this fast; it just wouldn’t do for Beacon’s newest professor to lose to a group of students, even students as exceptional as this year’s latest crop.

She threw the gates of her Semblance wide open, seeming to explode as a fireball billowed around her. Both students were thrown off balance, Jerome was thrown away, and she lifted her arm, with the whip wrapped and knotted around it. Samantha recovered in time to realize what was going to happen, but could only sit and watch as the prosthetic disconnected from its base and launched away, carried out of the arena by a one-time Burn Dust booster, dragging the whip behind it. Yang looked back to see Samantha trying, with a look of panic, to remove the weapon from where it was wrapped around her wrist before it yanked her off her feet and sent her soaring out of the arena as well. The arm slammed into the wall, cracking the plaster and embedding itself halfway in. The whip coiled together and acted as a cushion for its wielder, who dropped back to the floor with all the poise she could muster and began the detangling process.

Jerome watched the exchange from where he stood, unable to intervene in time, then looked back to Yang. A glance at the aura meter seemed to confirm for him that yes, he was now alone. He took a resigned breath, raised his hammers defensively, and braced for the hit.

-

“Alright guys, nice work today. You’re dismissed-” The crowd of students that had been watching the fights jumped up and started running out of the room “-and I expect improvement over the weekend! Practice with your teams!” She finished with a yell as the last student ran out, slamming the door shut.

“Damn Fridays.” They left in enough of a hurry when it wasn’t the last class before the weekend. It was only the first week! If she didn’t know better, she’d almost think they were scared… of… her…

A platinum blonde woman with a riding crop flashed through her memory, and she shuddered. Turning around, she muttered to herself as she started walking; “I can’t believe I’m turning into her. How did I ever get talked into taking this job?”

“If I’m not mistaken, it wasn’t all that hard.”

Yang turned once more, finding the owner of the voice standing in the doorway. Younger than her, barely older than the first-years that had just left, and yet among the most influential people in the kingdom. He looked… off.

“Y’know if you’d just fire me, I might be able to accomplish something for once.” She’d never been one for decorum.

She had expected at least a chuckle from that. “You and I both know that you can do the most good from right here, Miss Xiao Long.” His expression stayed as it was, slightly sad and vaguely familiar.

Her stump shifted as if to cross her arms before she realized what she was doing. She settled for a creased brow instead. “Alright Oscar, what’s going on?”

Oscar’s grip tightened around his cane. “I’m afraid that we have lost contact with your sister. As far as know, she is alive, but we do not know where she is.”

Yang froze. She turned around, walked the last few steps to her destination, and slammed her fist against the wall. Her prosthetic fell into her grasp, and she reattached it, taking a deep breath. When she turned back, her eyes had changed, shifting away from their usual lavender into a shocking shade of red. “What happened?”

“Ms. Rose took-”

“Drop the act, Oz.”

He blinked, startled at the nickname. He sighed. “Ruby took point on a group of Huntsmen investigating the loss of contact from the town of Leaston and its surrounding villages. Apparently, a tribe of bandits had brought down the local CCT booster tower, and Ruby found evidence of your mother’s involvement.”

Raven. Yang hadn’t seen her mother since the Battle of Haven, and her feelings toward the woman had only soured with time.

Oscar continued, “The group tracked down the tribe, and captured or killed everyone in the camp. Raven herself was not present. According to one of the Huntsmen she was working with, Ruby sent the group away with the prisoners, staying behind herself. We can assume that she intended to find the missing relic without raising questions before Raven interrupted. One of the other Huntsmen heard the fighting and saw the last few seconds; it ended with Raven dragging Ruby through a portal, and neither of them has been seen since."

Yang didn’t respond, processing this new information. When she started walking, pushing past Oscar and turning down the hall, he had to jog to keep up with her. He started to speak, but she cut him off.

“Who else knows what happened?”

“...You were the first person we’ve told, and the other Huntsmen have been… politely informed to keep quiet. I assume you’ll be taking some leave?”

“Right now, I’m going to call my family and my team. The leave request will be on Glynda’s desk-”

Yang stopped short. Oscar had smiled in such a way that Yang could see the boy’s previous incarnation coming through, stronger than usual. If you asked her, that whole situation was still creepy. “You should move quickly. This will not stay quiet for long.”

-

Yang sat in the Cross-Continental Transmit tower, newly repaired and back in working order now that the Wyvern was gone. She’d gone to a terminal on one of the lower floors, specifically reserved for VIPs to have private calls on high-speed lines. 

Professorship did have its perks.

Dad would be in the middle of class, Qrow was off… somewhere, and JNPR was in Mistral on a mission, so it wasn’t likely that any of them would pick up a direct call at the moment. She’d wait a few hours before trying to contact them.

The timing of this news wasn’t entirely inconvenient, though. Blake would be done with work for the day in Menagerie, and Weiss would likely be in her office until later in the night. Normally she wouldn’t disrupt the two, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation. 

Yang dialed the team’s group number, and Weiss picked up on the second ring. If her hair wasn’t already stark white, Yang would have almost expected it to be going grey from the tone of her voice, despite the momentary cheerfulness. “Yang! It’s so good to see you! How’s the semester going?”

This wasn’t going to be fun. “Hey, Weiss. The year’s off to a decent start. The students are terrified of me, that’s a good thing, right?”

Weiss responded, “Living up to Headmistress Goodwitch’s example, I see.” They both shared a light laugh. 

“...Yang? What’s going on?” Apparently, that was enough for Weiss to clue into the fact that something was wrong.

“Let’s save it for when Blake gets here. It’s best if we can all work-” She was interrupted by Blake’s customized tone as the woman herself joined the call.

“Yang, Weiss. It’s good to see you… both. What’s wrong?”

Yang sighed. “Ruby’s gone missing.” Weiss’ eyes went wide, and she covered her mouth with one hand as Blake’s eyes narrowed and her ears flattened against her head. “Apparently, she fought my mom, who used the Relic of Knowledge to kidnap her.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, with Weiss the first to recover. “Is she still alive?”

“I don’t see why Raven would have taken her if she wasn’t.”

Weiss nodded, reaching out of view of the camera. She came back with a scroll and put it to her ear. “Klein? Ready my airship for launch as quickly as possible. I’ll be flying to Beacon, followed by Menagerie, followed by…” She looked back to Yang.

“I don’t know where they are. We’re probably gonna be looking for a while.”

“An extended voyage of unknown duration. Yes, that would be wonderful. Thank you, Klein.”

Blake had muted her side of the call, getting her own preparations ready. Yang was struck by the thought that, with a single CCT call, her team was willing to drop everything they were doing - the largest Dust company on the planet, the biggest Faunus rights movement in history, both left in the hands of others because their teammate was in trouble.

Blake spoke up, “My father will be taking over the White Fang during my absence. Who else are we bringing with us?”

Yang responded, “I’ll be calling my Dad and Uncle as soon as we’re done here, and Team Juniper if I can get ahold of them, but otherwise this is being kept as quiet as it can be. We don’t want the masses getting involved in this if we don’t have to, especially if there’s a Relic involved.” They both understood the need for secrecy here. If word of the Relic’s power began to spread, it could trigger another Great War.

Weiss spoke up next, “What are we going to do once we’ve found them? It’s not like we can force Raven to do what we want her to.”

Both teammates looking to her as the leader in Ruby’s absence. How in the world had that happened?

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a couple ideas. Weiss, I’ve got someone up in Atlas that I’d like to call in a favor from, do you think you could handle that for me?”

Weiss thought for a moment. “I suppose you mean Eira? I can have someone track her down, but it might take a while.”

“That’s alright. Have them tell her to call us when she gets the chance to do so and to stay within easy reach for the next few weeks. We might need to stop by and pick her up. Blake, our contacts in Vacuo are pretty thin, can you ask Sun to lay out some feelers, see if there have been any strange women coming through portals? Tell him what’s going on if you need to, but make sure he knows to keep it quiet.”

Blake nodded her assent. “I’ll need to go make preparations. Weiss, how long until your ship arrives?”

“I’ll be about a week, unless… Yang, Juniper are in Mistral at the moment, aren’t they? I can pick up you and your family, we meet Blake halfway at Haven Academy, find Juniper while we’re there, and then begin the hunt.”

“That sounds good to me. Blake, how fast can you get to Mistral?”

“Fast enough. I’ll see you there.” Blake ended her end of the call.

Weiss looked to Yang. “I’ll see you in three days. We’re going to find her, Yang.”

Yang smiled, but she knew Weiss could see through her facade. Finding her wasn’t the problem, anyway. Raven would turn up eventually, she couldn’t not. The real issue… well.

“Yeah, I know we’ll find her. I’m just worried about what happens when we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I actually meant to post this yesterday, but it slipped my mind. We've got a Yang Interlude! Yangterlude? Eh. Interludes from Remnant's perspective will probably come at the end of each arc (or at least every other arc, depending on which path I take this plotline down.)
> 
> Next chapter is in progress, I'm gonna _try_ for the end of the month, but no promises. See you then!


	8. Roots 2-1

That was a _lot_ of cameras.

I was standing up near the ceiling of the PRT’s press conference room. They had a platform bolted to the back wall next to the tech booth, I guess for introductions just like this one, and I was able to see every one of the dozens of cameras, microphones, and reporters between the stage and myself.

“ _...previously unknown cape…_ ”

We’d only had time to practice this once, what if it all came apart? Some of those cameras were broadcasting live!

“ _...introduce you to this new hero._ ”

One of the techs got my attention with a wave and pantomimed a deep breath, before gesturing toward the crowd and touching her finger and thumb together. I couldn’t quite figure out what she meant, but I got the intent. I smiled at her before realizing that she couldn’t see my mouth through my new mask, and nodded after a few seconds instead.

One more thing to get used to, I guess.

“ _Brockton Bay: I’d like you to meet Scatter._ ”

Heart pounding, I scattered, spreading out in a wave a lot like the one I used against Fenja and Menja. Cameras turned up towards me as I swept down over the crowd, crashing against the stage and rematerializing. Now was… right, just showing off my Semblance. Simple enough. I did it in the lab, I could do it again here. Some simple dashing around, a quick flight straight up and a teleport straight down. Enough to get people interested without giving too much away. Hopefully, anyway.

And now we had the speech. I didn’t have to write it, thankfully. Someone in the tangled mess that I had apparently made of the PRT’s bureaucracy must have had pity on me.

“Hello everyone. Like you’ve just heard, I’m Scatter.”

Polite applause echoed through the room… but not as much as I was expecting there to be.

“Like you just saw, my powers let me turn into that super-fast cloud of rose petals, with… a few other tricks as well.” 

I had run into a lot of reporters over the years, and by now it wasn’t hard to read them. There were a couple who probably hadn’t been reporting for more than a couple of years, and they watched with interest, but most of the rest just seemed to be doing their jobs, like this situation was an everyday thing to them.

It was a little bizarre, to be honest.

The script suggested a smile here, and even though they couldn’t see my mouth I did anyway. “For the power geeks in the audience, I’m rated as a Breaker/Mover 5, Stranger 2... among a few others.” There were a few chuckles at that, mostly from the newer journalists. “I was able to take down the Empire’s twins with the Protectorate’s help, and in the very near future we’ll be catching a few more bad guys for you.” 

Apparently, that didn’t actually refer to any mission that had been planned, it was just meant as a general reassurance that we were still protecting people. That kind of statement wasn’t uncommon when Huntsmen had to speak to the public back home, but the Protectorate seemed to operate in the public eye much more often than Huntsmen ever did. Shouldn't it be more obvious here?

The woman who had first introduced me stepped back up. “We’ll be taking a few questions now. Let’s start with you.” She pointed at one of the newer people in the room. This was the part that I’d been drilled the most on, even if it still wasn’t that much. They’d written up guidelines for how to answer certain questions that might be asked, and advised that I deflect and avoid any questions that they didn’t predict.

“Bonnie Nichols, from _The Northeast Sentinel_. Watching the video that’s been making the rounds online, it’s pretty obvious you’ve got some experience in fighting. Have you ever operated as a cape before?”

I half-recognized this paper from reading articles on my first day here. If I remembered right, they focused on capes, so it wasn’t too surprising that they’d picked up on that. “I’m sorry, but I’ll need to skip that question, and any others about my background.” Watching her face fall, I added, “I... will confirm that I do have some combat experience, yes.” Someone might get upset with me over that. I hadn’t really told her anything she didn’t already know, though, so that shouldn't matter that much, right?

She smiled, sat back down, and another reporter was called on. “Guy Wolfe, _Bay Times_. It’s wonderful to meet you, Scatter. Speaking of the video - it shows you carrying a very large weapon and using it in the fight. It doesn’t look like you have it with you, but could you tell us about it?”

A grin shot across my face. “I’d love to, Mr. Wolfe. I can’t tell you much right now, other than that I’m working with Armsmaster to improve the design, but you’ll be hearing more about it very soon.”

He raised one eyebrow, but nodded and sat back down, taking notes. Another reporter was chosen out of the crowd.

The interview continued like that for a while longer; one person getting called on at a time. One magazine asked about why my recruitment was so fast, which I honestly answered with an ‘I don’t know.’ After a half-dozen or so hard questions, the softballs started coming in, ranging from my personal hobbies to my favorite Protectorate member. Still super strange, somehow, but easier.

The interview ended not long after, and I Scattered off the stage, through the crowd, and then up through the ceiling -still with much more enthusiasm than I actually felt - to a final round of applause. I appeared in a small room on the floor above and found Challenger waiting for me, sitting in a spinny chair and not wearing a mask.

As he noticed me materializing, he stood and held out a hand. “You might as well be on the team now, so there’s not much reason to keep this a secret anymore. My real name is Jacob Hardin.”

He said it in a way that made it obvious how important he thought this was. I didn’t really get it, but I could play along. “Nice to meet you, Jacob. I'm...” Well, he already knew me as Ruby, so... "Scatter."

He smiled. “The interview went well, I assume?”

“I guess? I don’t really have a lot to compare it to.”

“Good, now we've got to get you moving. You’ve got somebody waiting for you." The door opened on its own - pushed by one of his forcefields, I noticed. "I don’t guess you know who Alexandria is, do you?”

-

A woman dressed in blacks and greys, helmet covering the top half of her head and sporting an impractically long cape absolutely dominated the room. Sure, it was a typical conference room, and there wasn't anybody else in there, but still. Just the way she held herself had weight to it.

She spoke, and wow her voice was imposing. Where Piggot was intimidating, this woman was almost terrifying. “Scatter, I believe?”

“Um, yes, that’s me. I guess you’re Alexandria?”

She nodded, and that simple action had _impact_. I’d seen people with this kind of presence before, in Salem and Ozpin, and sort of with Glynda or a couple of the Maidens, but Alexandria put them all to shame. “Yes, I am. I’d like to ask you some things about your homeworld.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll tell you what I can.” Why was she here for that? Surely somebody who worked here could do this if that was all this was about.

“I understand that your world has had parahumans for many years. How long has that been, exactly?”

Um, okay then. “Nobody knows exactly. We don't have very good records going back more than about a century." The Grimm made sure of that.

“But your people have had powers for longer than thirty years?” 

Why did that matter? Why thirty years in particular? “Yeah, Semblances have been around for… hundreds or thousands of years, at least.” The only real evidence I had for that was Oscar, but he'd always been vague about his exact age. He'd had at least a couple dozen bodies though, so that sounded about right.

The shadows of her eyes seemed to stare through me, even though I couldn’t tell what exactly she was looking at through her mask. “Do you know what a trigger event is?”

“Um, no? I don’t think so.”

“It's the term we use for the moment when a person gains their powers.” She paused, as if waiting for a reaction, then continued when I didn’t respond. “It is typically accompanied by severe stress and trauma, to the point that it often leaves the new parahuman psychologically damaged.”

I inhaled hard and my hands went to my mouth. I… That… That was horrible. I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if that were true on Remnant; the Grimm attracted to the location of anyone who found their Semblance.

Alexandria tilted her head, just enough to get across her curiosity. “I assume it works differently on Remnant?”

“Yeah, way different. It…” I struggled to find the words. "Here." Channeling my uncle’s teaching, I activated my Aura and focused, letting the familiar red glow cover me as my eyes began to shine. “It starts with Aura. There are all kinds of beliefs about what exactly it is, but it’s always the first power you get, usually from someone using their own to activate it. A defensive shield, some healing. It gets stronger as you learn to use it, and you get new abilities; you get stronger and faster than you would otherwise, you learn to sense attacks before they hit you, and at some point in all of that you find your Semblance.”

She seemed to process that for a moment. “Your people can choose who gains their powers?”

“Um, yes?”

“Does everyone on Remnant have them, then?”

“Oh, no!” So that’s where she was going with that. “You have to be really strong when it comes to using it before you can awaken it in someone else, and it gets harder every time. A typical Huntsman might awaken a single person in their lifetime, and even the best won’t awaken more than a few.”

She nodded, taking that in stride. “Could you awaken someone now?”

Uh oh. I should’ve guessed that she might ask that. “No, I can’t. I awoke the-” No, wait, don’t talk about her. Not yet anyway. “Someone else a few years ago. It’ll be a long time before I can do it again, and that's if it happens at all.”

“I see.” Yeah, she did see. See right through me, that is. “You said that aura is 'usually' activated by others. That means that it can appear another way?”

“It’s _rare_. I’ve only met one person it happened to that lived through it, and he almost certainly would have been killed anyway if it hadn’t appeared.”

“What makes it so dangerous?” Her tone had changed a little. Concern? 

“You know about the Grimm, right? I told the director about them.” After a moment, she nodded. “They’re attracted to humans and life in general, but strong negative emotions act like a giant signal fire to them. Fear, anger, stress, they all attract them, and the stronger the emotion, the more Grimm get drawn in. When Aura shows up on its own, it tends to do so a little like how it does here, which then draws an army of monsters to the person who just got it.”

She gave no immediate reaction there, speaking up several moments later. “I suppose that will have to do. Let’s move to a different subject - what can you tell me about your world in general?"

That was an easier topic. "Well, we've got fou- no, five Kingdoms spread across four continents...

-

“I personally think we’ve got a pretty good setup here.”

It was later in the evening, and I was starting my first shift at the ‘console.’ At the same time, I was being taught everything that, if I was understanding this all right, I should have been told before I even accepted the job. I’d never had to deal with bureaucracy - or shifts, for that matter - back home, but I’d heard Ozpin’s horror stories.

“You’ll start as a junior member with a salary of seventy-eight thousand dollars per year - that’s a little over twice the average earnings of a typical resident of Brockton Bay, for context - which will rise to a hundred and twelve thousand after a year of service.”

That didn’t really sound like that much, but I guess the currency would be different here. You could get that many Lien out of just a handful of Hunts on Remnant. I’d figure it out though. “Alright. Um… you might have to have somebody explain how this all works. Remnant’s money is different, I think.”

Assault - Ethan, as he had introduced himself once the door was shut - grinned. He was being a lot more serious than the last time I met him, but then this was an important conversation. It was good to know that he could take things seriously when he needed to. “I think we can handle that. We’re typically taking some classes in our spare time anyway, so we can probably get you some starter-level courses in history and social studies to get you caught up.”

“Okay, that makes sense.” What I’d uncovered with my research at the library a few days ago had barely scratched the surface of either of those topics, and I hadn’t thought to look for more information since then. It had been a really busy few days.

“Now for your responsibilities.” He flashed a grin. “Don’t worry, you’ll get eased into anything you’re not comfortable with. On top of the Console,” He gestured at the big set of terminals we were sitting in front of, “you’ll start off tomorrow morning running a joint patrol with…” he trailed off, shuffling through papers. “Dauntless, apparently. That’s good, he’ll make it easy on you. The patrol’s just a simple walkaround of the city, showing the flag and all that. He’s super popular in town, so he’ll pull a lot of attention off you. You’re still a new face though, so there’s still gonna be some eyes on you. You’ll probably get asked to sign some autographs and have some pictures taken. We don’t technically have to, but Image... greatly encourages it, if you catch my drift.”

Years ago, that would’ve been terrifying. “I can do that, yeah. I’ve had to deal with that kind of attention back home. Dauntless won’t always be there to draw attention, right?”

He grinned without looking at me. He was watching a camera feed, where two costumed teenagers were walking through a crowd of people, smiling and shaking hands. “Nope, sorry. You’ll get a patrol with everybody at some point.” The grin vanished. “Velocity excepted, of course.”

“Why not him? He’s a speedster like me, right? That seems like a good combination.”

“Yeah, exactly.” At my questioning glance, he clarified, “Protectorate leadership has been pushing for somebody to transfer to Boston for weeks. They were trying to get Challenger, and we’d all kind of made our peace with that, but now that we’ve got two high-speed Movers, Velocity’s being swapped out instead.”

Oh. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. We sat in silence for a moment, watching those teenagers begin to cross the forcefield bridge (so cool) that connected this base to the mainland. The Wards, I guessed. Two boys, one in red and gold armor with some very familiar-looking equipment and the other in white with some kind of decoration traced out in black.

Alright, Ruby, you’ve got to say something eventually. “Umm… I’m sorry to hear that? I guess you two are close?”

He blinked. “Yeah. Sorry about that, we’re getting a little off-topic. Let’s see, money, patrolling, pee-arr… oh, you’ll be going through some power testing pretty soon. Don’t know exactly when, but the PRT will be bringing in somebody to make sure that your power does what you think it does. Probably not an issue for you, but it’s standard procedure. I don’t think it’ll take long, and then we can get into sparring and real training.” The grin came back. “With what I saw of that recording, that should be pretty interesting all on its own.”

He was certainly right about that. I’d seen a little of how the people here fought, and with the possible exception of Armsmaster, there was much less of a focus on skill than there was on using Semblances. Even the best fighters hadn’t displayed anything close to Huntsman-level training. That was sort of expected - without Aura, a lot of Remnant’s training methods wouldn’t apply or would be too dangerous to attempt. Still, it would be interesting to get a solid idea of how people here fought without it.

The image of the forcefield bridge cut to another, showing the boys entering the Rig. Ethan stood up, stretched, and pulled on his mask. “For now though, how’d you like to meet a couple of the Wards?”

I put on my own mask, lifted my hood, and followed him out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a while, sorry about that. Can't make any promises that the next one will be any faster, but a man can dream, right? It's been technically started, at least, and I'm trying a couple of new strategies for increasing the pace, so we'll see how it goes. Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next time!


	9. Roots 2-2

"Hey guys, how'd the patrol go?"

A young-sounding voice responded casually, "Same as usual. Not a peep from anybody who matters, and nobody's dumb enough to cause trouble on a known patrol route, let alone one that's literally within sight of the Rig or the PRT building the entire time."

"So you're saying you'd prefer it if people were getting mugged within sight of the Rig, are you?"

A wry chuckle. "I'd prefer to not be patrolling where people aren't getting mugged."

I chose that moment to speak up, "I'm kinda with the kid, to be honest." I stepped out from around the corner. The one in power armor was the one talking, and I saw his eyebrows rise from behind his visor.

Ethan glanced backward towards me and rolled his eyes with a smile. "Well, there goes the surprise, I guess. Clock, Kid, this is Scatter."

"Ah, so that's why we wrapped up over here this time." Red stepped forward, holding out a hand to shake. "I'm Kid Win, that's Clockblocker." White gave a sloppy, Vacuan-style salute.

Assault spoke up again; "I figured you should meet up with the Wards at some point, and their patrol ended the at the same time our shift did. We'll head over to the PRT building in a bit to meet the rest of them."

"Well then, nice meeting you," I said, shaking Kid Win's hand.

He smiled. "So you're 'with me,' huh? Maybe they'll listen to you if you told them we're tough enough to go a little further out?"

Uh, what? I stammered, "Um, I don't think, I…"

"Back off, Kid." Assault stepped between us, giving him a hard look. "I know how you feel, but this isn't the time." He turned back to me, looking a little annoyed. "Sorry about that. Want to let these two report in, then head over to the Wards base with them?

-

The Wards were scattered about the room, but our entry had attracted some attention. An older, very muscular boy in skintight white with a lion motif sat at a terminal station very similar to the one I had just been working at, watching a camera feed that seemed to be blurring from place to place - a helmet camera, from the height and the motion. He glanced in my direction, looked over to the girl next to him, then grimaced and waved with one hand before returning his focus to his console. Beside him, clearly much more focused on me, the girl was dressed in solid black with a _fantastic_ cloak, a domino mask, a raised eyebrow, and a deep frown.

Exiting a short hallway opposite the elevator was a younger girl in whites and greens, a visor over her eyes as she looked me over. A boy in a rust-red helmet stuck his head out of a door in that direction as well, made eye contact, and then vanished back inside.

The girl in green was the first to speak up, as Clockblocker and Kid Win walked past us to sit down. "So... I guess you're Scatter? I figured you'd be coming down here soon."

She sounded... a little familiar. "Yep, that's me! I guess you'd be Vista?"

"Yeah. Most of us saw the video of your fight against the twins, it was pretty impressive. Where'd you learn how to fight?"

Oh. Well, that was gonna come up eventually, but still. I glanced back to Assault, who raised an eyebrow at me. Right, he didn't know either.

"That's... kind of a long story. If I'm allowed to, It'd probably be best if I told everybody at once, including the Protectorate. There are a few people who already know, but it's kind of complicated."

"Huh." There were several reactions to that, mostly expressing interest or annoyance. The girl in black stood out; she looked somewhere between fascinated and angry.

Vista didn't get the chance to say any more before the boy from down the hall exited his room, followed by another in a hastily-applied domino mask, who was the first to speak. "Ma'am! Glad to meet you, I'm Gallant, this is Aegis. Welcome to the Wards compound!" He held out a hand, which I shook.

Lots of introductions very quickly were starting to blend together. Clockblocker, Kid Win, Vista, Gallant, Aegis... "That makes him Triumph," I said, indicating the lion-guy, "and you'd be Shadow Stalker?"

The girl in black met my eyes. "That's me." There was a bit of an awkward silence then where she looked me up and down, appraising. It ended with Triumph nudging her with a disapproving look, prompting a huff of frustration as she spun her chair back around to the console.

"Anyway -" "So where-" Gallant and Vista started talking at the same time, then traded glances. Vista ducked her head and blushed, and Gallant continued with a smile, "I haven't actually watched that video, but I heard it was pretty impressive. Your interview mentioned a scythe, right?"

"Yeah. Apparently, it's 'too dangerous' for the public to accept or something, so they won't let me use it."

Kid Win perked up at that, but Vista talked first. "What would make it dangerous? They're usually alright with melee weapons… when the Protectorate are using them, anyway."

I grinned wide, not that they could see it. "I designed it myself back when I was a kid - it's got four different standard setups for combat, a high-impact magnetically-powered sniper rifle built into the haft, I can channel different Dust effects into the blade -"

Aegis interrupted, "Dust?"

Heheh, whoops. "Umm… that's kind of a long story too. I can use different elemental effects in combination with the ammunition or the blade - fire, lightning, ice…"

"You're a Tinker too?" Kid had been looking more and more interested the whole time I'd been talking, and finally found a moment to talk.

"No… yes? I guess sort of, yeah." At least, I was here. Behind me, from where he was leaning back against the wall, listening in, Assault's phone rang, and he stepped into the hallway to answer the call.

"What's your specialty?"

"Uhh, I don't know what that means."

"The thing you're best at making, that you can do and nobody else can, or that you can do better than any other Tinker."

This was gonna get confusing fast if I didn't tell them anything. "I don't think I have one. Like I said, it's a-"

"Long story?"

"...Yeah. Things work differently where I come from, sorry. People that can make that kind of stuff are pretty common."

"Is that how it works? I didn't think powers changed like that based on where you're from."

Assault interrupted, "Sorry to cut this short, but we've got to head out. Somebody's pulled some strings to get you into power testing early, you're being shipped out to Boston for a couple days."

"Already?"

"Yeah, it's weird. Maybe something about your background has them worried. They're prepping the van right now, we should head up there."

Disappointed, I looked back to the Wards, who were… exchanging glances and poorly suppressed laughter. "What is it?"

Vista was the one to respond. "They haven't told you what that'll be like, have they?"

"Uh, no? It's just power testing, how bad could it be?"

-

I slumped onto my bed, barely even noticing the dullness of the room. I smelled terrible, and my hair was plastered to my scalp to the point that I might have been worried about the dye washing out if I'd cared enough to notice. I would never have expected something as innocuous-sounding as 'power testing' to be that exhausting, even compared to Huntsman training, but it had managed to be.

They'd broken down my Aura over and over again with different kinds of attacks, trying out fire and electricity and raw force and other things I'd never even thought of in order to figure out exactly how much damage I could take. They'd blindfolded me, plugged my ears, and then tried to hit me to try and figure out how well I could sense attacks coming. They'd gone over my speed, my teleportation, and everything in between to figure out exactly how far my Semblance could go.

There was a knock on the door. I moaned in the intruder's general direction, and apparently, that was permission enough for... Vista to invite herself in. Okay then.

"Wow, they really went all out on you, didn't they?"

She sounded smug. Why did she sound smug? "...did you know this was going to happen?"

"Yeah, everybody did. We all had to go through the wringer up there... though you actually look worse off than most. What happened?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Apparently, my powers are broad enough that they could barely fit in all the testing they needed."

She seemed to puzzle that over for a second. "But couldn't they just add an extra day?"

"That's what I said!"

I heard a huff - she was laughing quietly. "Alright, well I hate to bring you more bad news, but-"

I cut her off with a groan.

"-Assault sent me, he's wanting to spar." She was quiet for a moment. "Want me to tell him you were asleep when I found you?"

I buried myself further into the pillows.

"Gotcha. Have a good rest." She left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Moments later, I was dreaming of home.

-

The training room where I'd gone through Armsmaster's initial testing was more crowded this time. A small group of... relatively athletic people jogged on treadmills, lifted weights, and did other such things at various points across the room. My costumed appearance drew some interested looks, but no one approached.

"So how'd it go?" Assault asked, stepping out from behind the door and dragging out the last word to be two syllables long.

"Not... the worst thing I've ever been through." Technically the truth.

"So you should be peachy for a spar now, right?" He said it loudly enough to draw attention, and I could sense the excitement from across the room. Equipment started getting put away, and the people started migrating for a door directly under the viewing booth.

The sleep had helped, but I still wasn't quite at full strength. Still though, probably not a good idea to say no, those guys seemed excited. "Sure, I guess. Just you and me?"

"Yeah, I think so. What'd they rate you for?"

"Uh..." I had to rack my memory. Lots of numbers to remember. "Breaker... seven, Mover five, Stranger three for my Semblance, Brute-Thinker four for my Aura, and a Tinker two just because Remnant is more advanced than Earth is, technologically. I'm... not really sure what most of that means, to be honest."

He nodded. "Yeah, that's something else you'll need to get caught up on. It doesn't matter that much for us, but hearing what they put you at to begin with is useful. You're pretty versatile." I blushed at the compliment. "Plus, with your combat experience... well, this oughta be interesting."

A few minutes later, one of the guys who'd been working out in here before I arrived was up in the booth, holding a microphone and wearing a black and white striped shirt. That had caused a lot of laughter that I didn't understand.

 _"In this corner, the defender of his title, he's been operating for ten-I MEAN FOUR years,"_ More laughter. There must've been some in-joke that I wasn't getting. _"The Striker Seven, Mover Three, the neverending onslaught, ASSAULT!"_

_"And in this corner, a newcomer to our little ring, already with a very impressive takedown under her belt - Breaker Seven, Mover Five, Brute/Thinker Four, Little Red Reaping Hood herself, SCATTER!"_

I was so confused, I didn't even know where to begin. I decided to just focus on the fight.

_"Ready!"_

_"Three!"_

_"Two!"_

_One!_

_"Begin!"_

Assault jerked forward, accelerating way faster than I would've expected him to manage from a standstill. Slower than me at my top speed, for sure, but he might've had an advantage in maneuverability.

My Aura flared in warning, and I scattered around the punch to my gut, diving around him and reforming on the other side. I spun around for a kick to his side, he raised an arm to block, and my foot stopped dead the moment it touched him.

If I remembered right, his power worked off of physical force. He'd absorbed the force of that attack, and now he'd be able to use it against me. How was I supposed to fight someone that I couldn't even attack?

His elbow shot back towards me, and I caught it on my guard rather than dodge. I could feel the damage to my Aura, but it didn't do that much and hopefully, it made him use up some amount of his stored energy.

He spun, sending a flurry of punches my way, and I continued blocking. His guard was a little sloppy, but the one time I got a punch in to take advantage, I just bounced off him. Panicking a little as my Aura dropped further and further, I scattered _up_ , landing on the platform above to give myself some breathing room.

I dipped fully into my power, and the world vanished. Vague impressions of vibrations in the air and platform made me aware of motion, things changing, as the outline of my surroundings that I'd trained myself to burn into my memory became less and less accurate as time went on. My aura warped and stretched, enveloping several feet of the platform in either direction and filling the area with loose petals.

No more than a couple seconds after I landed, I felt the platform I'd wrapped myself around shudder as Assault made a standing jump ten feet in the air to land just in front of the cloud of rose petals that occupied my former position.

He threw another punch, and in his hesitant confusion when the cloud didn't react, I materialized from a portion of my Aura that had been behind him and kicked him in the back before I could hit the ground and alert him to where I was.

That did something. He stumbled forward, barely catching himself on the railing of the platform before whirling around to face me. He couldn't block attacks he didn't know were coming.

I rushed him, hoping I could pull a similar trick, but he pushed off the railing, bending it down as he launched himself up, before ricocheting off an upper catwalk and coming at me from above. I juked to the side, jumping the gap to yet another walkway before going up again, to the second level. A glance behind me revealed him following, taking a running leap that carried him farther up than it had any right to, and allowing him to land right where I had.

He lunged, and I scattered once more, managing to get a grip on his wrist with both hands as I tried to pull him into the railing. He put out a hand to catch himself, and before he made contact I vanished, teleporting under the platform before gripping the floor above me and swinging over, successfully planting a foot in his back before launching backward and up.

We paused there, me on the third, topmost layer of catwalks and him on the layer below, on a walkway running perpendicular to mine. At a guess, there were fifteen feet of horizontal distance between us, and around ten vertical. I could make the jump, and I was pretty sure he could too, but neither of us would be able to cross the distance without the other taking advantage, and we both knew it.

I couldn't use the same took a chance, glancing around the room to see if I could find something to take advantage of. There wasn't much at this level, thirty feet off the ground. There was another fifteen feet or so between this platform and the ceiling, but the only thing higher than me was one of the hoops that had been welded to the wall at random intervals. Below… nothing new. Assault, the catwalks, then the ground.

One section of the catwalk caught my eye - the place where Assault had dented it while pushing himself up. A plan unfurled in my mind, and I looked back to my opponent.

Maybe five seconds after our stalemate began, I saw him tense, preparing to move. I didn't know where he was going, but it didn't really matter. At the same moment he kicked off, aiming to get above and past me, I flew directly for him, scattering around the kick he sent at me, then around the rest of him.

He hit one of the hoops, and ricocheted off it, coming back around for me. I landed on the first level of catwalks, spun around and raised my guard. I saw his eyes flicker from side to side, trying to find the trap before he hit me, but he could only have seen it before. I scattered, letting him fall _through_ me and forcing him to hit the damaged railing at full force. The rail sheared off instantly, and he began falling towards the floor.

He spun to face the ground, preparing to do something, but before he got the chance I was ahead of him, preparing to kick off his chest. I bounced off, the redirection almost painful, but he paid for it once the chunk of railing I'd thrown at him before I started moving hit him in the back of the neck.

Using the momentum from his redirection, I pulled into a backflip and landed in a three-point superhero pose. He, meanwhile, fell flat on his face.

"...ow."

"Oh! Are you alright? You didn't break anythi-"

"No, no, I'm fine! That was…". He chuckled. "Well played. I wasn't expecting- what was that you threw at me, the railing?"

"Umm, yeah?"

"Nicely done, I thought I was gonna counter you a little harder than I did, but you worked around it. Where did you say you learned to fight, again?"

Ugh. I was getting tired of keeping stuff secret. "Yeah, everyone should probably know the details there. If nothing else, it'll make explanations easier. Let's go ask the Director if she can get everybody together for a bit. This'll be easier to explain to the whole group."

Dauntless was the first to speak. "What's this all about, exactly?"

I was in a conference room, seated at Director Piggot's left, with Armsmaster on her right and the rest of the Protectorate and Wards teams seated on both sides of the table. It was honestly kind of impressive, seeing the number of people they had at their disposal. A group of Huntsmen of this size could be close to unstoppable if they really wanted to be. In addition, there were several other people dressed in fancy suits instead of costumes; maybe some of the PRT's soldiers? I saw Shane back in the corner, so maybe they were just normal employees.

The Director responded. "Many of you have likely noticed that we've been keeping a lid on the details of the past of our newest Protectorate member. That is going to remain the case to anyone outside this room - if you're in here and don't already know, we are informing you because you will be working closely with Scatter, or because it is directly relevant to your work here. No one else is to be told without the express permission of myself or my superiors, is that understood?"

There was a collection of quiet 'yes ma'am's in response, and the entire crowd seemed intrigued. Everyone likes a mystery.

"Alright then, if that's clear, then I'll turn it over to Scatter herself. Please hold all questions until the end. Scatter?"

The entire table turned to me.

Well, here goes. "I'm… not quite from around here…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! This one fought me a little, but help from the Cauldron Discord got me through it (thanks to everyone over there!) I wound up having to rewrite like 600 words near the end of this one, and that only delayed it by like two days.
> 
> By the way, most of you probably haven't seen it yet, but my profile page will now contain a sort of mini-progress-blog that I'll update on occasion. EDIT: Just realized I copied this over from FFn with no changes. I meant _that_ profile. My account and the story have the same name there, so it shouldn't be hard to find me.
> 
> One more thing; I've just started my freshman year of college, and I'm not really sure how it'll affect update speed. So far, it doesn't seem to have had too big of an effect, but we'll have to see how it goes. If I vanish into the ether for a few months (again...) then that's probably why. I'll try to keep posting stuff to the profile at least, even if it's just a sort of 'no progress, see you next week' thing.
> 
> As always, critique is appreciated, thank you all for reading, and I'll see you next time!


	10. Roots 2-3

Armsmaster looked unhappy, not that I could imagine why. I guess I was taking up his workshop time, but still. I had thought he would love this kind of thing.

“Tell me again what you’re trying to do here?”

It… probably didn’t help that I wasn’t having any luck. Weiss was always better with Dust, dang it. “Lightning Dust gets used for stun rounds a lot back home, but if you do it right, a similar technique can be used to do… aha! This!”

The yellow Dust crystal in my hand finally flashed, and once the spots were cleared from my eyes I held a crackling, sparking dagger. I swiped it through the table, leaving scorch marks - oh, is he mad at me again?

He spoke again. “What… exactly… is that?” He... actually sounded more interested than upset. Perfect.

“Lightning Dust! We use it for, like, electric generators on Remnant, but Huntsmen use it more often as ammunition. Load it into a Dust cartridge, it gets activated right as it fires, and instead of a chunk of crystal, you’ve got a tangible cloud of lightning flying at your target. Do it right, and it stuns people instead of, y’know, killing them.”

Armsmaster had picked up one of the other cartridges now and was looking it over. He walked over to a bench on the wall, and stuck it into some kind of… scanner? “How do you control the amperage, keep it from killing people?”

That was a very good question. “It just kind of happens. Dust seems to naturally work in really convenient ways, and nobody knows why.”

“...Interesting.” He looked back to the other cartridges. “What do the other colors do?”

Armsmaster was sounding more and more intrigued. “Red’s fire, pretty much what it sounds like. Green’s wind, same deal. The blue is ice; when the crystal activates, it turns into a bunch of ice - like, gallons of it for an average sized crystal.”

“I see.” He turned around to face me. “As fascinating as this has been, what exactly is it you’re trying to do? I assume it involves the electric knife you’re holding?”

I nodded. “I don’t have anywhere near the Dust supply I’d need for it, but take this…” I waved the knife. “And scale it up to like two dozen times its current size…”

His eyes widened beneath his helmet. “I see. That being said, you yourself said you’re limited in resources. What’s your plan?”

Now here was the kicker. “I was hoping that’s where you could help. I know this world doesn’t have Dust occurring naturally, but I was hoping you could come up with a way of synthesizing it, or maybe have something else that did the same thing.”

“Hmm. My specialty doesn’t lie very close to matter synthesis… but I might actually have something for you in terms of the other option. It would still require you to blunt your blade temporarily, but perhaps I could work up a better solution, given time...”

Ugh. I hated the idea, but as long as it was temporary… “What do you have?”

He stepped around the table, and a locker behind me opened on its own. Going to it, he retrieved a small box, made of raw, unpainted metal and with dark lines at the seams. He crossed over to his scanner, grabbed a small chunk of metal from underneath the table it sat on, and laid the box and the metal together inside.

Closing the lid, he stepped back as the lights dimmed down and the box activated. Through the transparent blue of the scanner, I saw the box’s seams begin glowing with light, and it burst into lightning, flickering along the box’s interior.

“Wooooah”

Armsmaster seemed satisfied with himself. “I built it a few months ago, meant it to essentially be a Lung-scale taser. He wound up shrugging it off, so I scrapped the project, but it might be useful to you. Attach it to your weapon, and you should be able to coat the blade in visible electricity, and I can alter with the generator to lower the power to human-safe levels.”

I was excited, but his tone at the end implied there was more he wasn’t saying. “And?”

He seemed to think for a minute. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll give you this and help you maintain it, and start working on a method that would let you keep your blade’s edge, and in exchange, we have a talk about Remnant’s technology some time. If it’s all based around this Dust, then I’d like to see how much we can incorporate into my own gear.”

That seemed reasonable enough. “Sounds good to me! How long will it take you to get it ready?”

“Give me a few hours. I should have it done after your patrol. Keep that conversation in mind, please.”

“Will do- wait, the patrol! What time is it?” I looked around frantically. Why didn’t he have a clock in here? 

“Twelve thirty-four, you’re fine.”

“Oh. Right.” Heads-up display in his visor, probably. Made sense. “I should probably go get ready for that. Thank you again!”

-

“Bridge room, bridge room… there!”

I opened the door, stumbling through to find Dauntless waving at me. "Hello again!" he said, waving at me.

Once the brief moment of deja vu passed, I was able to respond. "Hello. So... I guess we're patrolling together now?"

"That's right! We'll start you off easy - across the bridge, through the boardwalk, then veer off into some of the seedier parts of town. I'd give us a fifty-fifty shot of running into something we can help deal with, but odds are we won't have any serious trouble. You've got one of the communicators, right? Know how to use it?"

"Yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory. Actually, I'm more worried about the fans than I am about any fighting."

"Well then, that is something that the Daring Dauntless can help you with!" The sentence started at a normal volume, then quickly rose to a triumphant shout. "I shall draw the enemy fire as well as I'm able, and we'll be out of the trenches A-S-A-P!"

As cheesy as it was, it was somehow still reassuring. He had his schtick down pat. "Okay then. I guess we should get going!”

The doors opened, and the light streamed in. The smooth blue of the forcefield bridge stretched out ahead of us, thirty or so feet wide and several hundred yards long; I'd looked this up earlier, and I knew that it was connected to a small building on the shoreline, subtly fortified as a defensive measure. Dauntless' glowing boots apparently let him fly, so we made good time across a bridge that would probably have taken us a good half-hour if we’d had to walk it normally.

By the time we exited the far building, nodding greetings to the PRT troopers based inside as we passed through, there was already a small crowd gathered about the loose fence on the other side. Dauntless spoke quietly enough that only I could hear him; "Just shake hands, smile - yes, they can tell if you're smiling, your whole body language changes - and sign autographs if you'd like. You don't have to talk to anybody if you don't want to, though it really wouldn't hurt." He pulled away slightly as we reached the crowd.

The noise was what struck me first. People shouting, each and every one struggling to be heard over all the others - reporters asking questions that I couldn’t hear, civilians and tourists waving sheafs of paper, books, and pictures, police shouting in order to keep everything calm - I almost froze entirely until I saw Dauntless marching forward into the mob, grabbing someone’s pen completely at random and start signing and shaking hands. 

I could do this. It was just civilians.

Seeing him so seemingly at home, I was able to take another step. I forced a smile onto my face and started making my way through. The crowd parted ahead of me, a shocking feat given how dense they seemed to be, and I was able to keep on walking relatively unimpeded. 

Dauntless was ahead of me, shining bright and drawing a bunch of attention. I could see him hovering a couple inches off the ground to lift him up above the crowd; meanwhile, my own relatively short stature made sure that even more eyes were on him. He really knew what he was doing.

Following his example, I took a marker somebody was holding out and signed- was that a T-shirt with my symbol on it? Where had they gotten that? As soon as I finished it had vanished back into the crowd, replaced by stuff ranging from newspaper clippings to toys to stuff I didn’t even recognize. I kept signing, experimenting with the signature a little but trying as hard as I could to keep it recognizable.

I kept moving forward, saw Dauntless slow down ahead of me, realized that the crowd was only a few more feet deep, and sped up a little. I couldn’t keep up with the suffocating chaos, and whether I was able to fake it or not I wasn’t going to be able to take it for long.

I finally passed through the final line of people and saw Dauntless turned around back towards me. He waved me towards him as he began to fly off, headed vaguely northwest. Before I followed him though, I turned around to face the crowd. Not really sure what I was doing, I gave them a wave, hand high in the air so even the people further back could see me.

I scattered away to the sound of applause and cheering, headed off after Dauntless.

-

“You handled yourself well out there. The wave, in particular, that was downright inspired.”

He’d seen that? I thought he was flying the other way. “I mean, it was just a wave…”

“Just a wave? You used your powers, flying up slightly to make yourself seen, you were surrounded by a cloud of petals, I’m pretty sure you were glowing, just a bit. I’d bet money that that image will be in the newspapers this evening.”

“I… did? I was just waving before flying away, I didn’t think… I was more scared than anything. The petals were there because I was already using my Semblance, so I could get out of there faster.”

“If you really just wanted to get out of there, I don’t think you would’ve waved like you did.”

Didn’t I? I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. I was gonna be a hero while I was here, but I hadn’t really thought much about the PR side of things. I just figured I’d try and slide under the public’s radar while I was here so that it wouldn’t make too big of a splash when I vanished to go back home.

When I didn’t respond, Dauntless kept talking. “I don’t know how much of this stuff you did where you come from, but if you keep up the kind of thing you just managed, you’ll end up just fine here. You’ll have to work at it - nobody can pull this kind of stuff off without any effort for very long - but I think you have the chance at a strong future here, if you want it.”

I smiled. “No offense, but I think I’d rather have a strong future on Remnant.”

His only response was laughter.

We moved on, Dauntless flying over me as I ran across the rooftops, and I was surprised at how quickly the streets went downhill. In the span of a couple of blocks, the buildings went from well-maintained brickwork and siding to dank, dirty concrete and metal warehouses. Graffiti covered most of the walls, and the sidewalks beneath us grew more cracked and filled with weeds with every step.

“Scatter, meet The Docks. ABB territory, and the biggest area for non-powered crime too. If we’re gonna find any action, it’ll be here!”

“Alright!” I hadn’t had a real fight since the Twins… wow, had that really been a full week before? The time was going by faster than I thought.

...My team probably knew I was missing by now. If I knew them, they’d have started hunting down Raven as soon as they heard. Hopefully, they had decided to bring in extra help this time, and not just charge in without a plan like we usually did...

“Hey, you doing alright?” Dauntless must’ve noticed my change in mood. I didn’t know how, with me wrapped up in my cloak and a full-face mask, but he must have. 

I pushed the thoughts away, returning to the excitement from moments before. “Yep, I’m fine! Let’s go!” I rushed ahead, dashing to the next roof and leaving those thoughts behind. Dauntless flew to catch up after a moment but didn’t push the question any further.

The patrol was supposed to last about three hours, and by that point maybe half of one had passed. By the time we got to the halfway point, we hadn’t encountered anything except some weird looks from the passersby, alternating between fear and, oddly, anger. Dauntless flew down once or twice, and he managed to get a couple of kids excited, but the adults seemed to edge away from him. 

Once he came back up, I raised the question. “What’s up with the people here? I thought the Protectorate was all about PR, getting people excited over the heroes. It… doesn’t seem like it’s working here.”

What I could see of Dauntless’ expression turned sour. “It doesn’t, always. A lot of independents and vigilantes make the mistake of assuming that makes it not matter, which is absolutely false, but… well. There aren’t enough heroes to be everywhere at once. People get hurt, and when we fail to intervene, we get blamed for it. The end result usually looks something like this.”

“That just means we need to work harder. Maybe we can’t be everywhere at once, but neither can the bad guys, right?”

“Well, there’s a lot more of them than there are of us.” He raised his voice a little, slipping into his triumphant hero-tone as we passed a mother and her two children walking hurriedly down the street. “You work fast enough we can barely keep up with you!” The mother glanced up at us, and though her younger son looked excited she grimaced and ushered him along.

My confusion must have carried through my body language since he kept explaining, “I’m not sure what it was like where you came from, but here… to put it bluntly, we’re outnumbered and outgunned on almost every count, and not every patrol ends as successfully as your first day here did. It’s why our PR is so important; because if people knew how bad off things really are, there’d be mass panic.”

That caught me off-guard. Oscar’s constant reminders about ensuring things stayed secret, hiding as much as he could, because of the panic he believed that his knowledge could bring. I was never really sure whether to agree with him or not - some of what we hid could have done a lot of good in the long run, but when any major disturbance could trigger a major Grimm attack… I had gone along with it because of that. I would need to think about how I was going to react to it here.

I didn’t respond, and he let the conversation end. We continued on, swapping small talk and little else for the patrol’s remainder.

-

That evening, I finally found myself with nothing urgent to do. After some exploring in-costume, I found myself in what must have been some kind of break room on the Rig. It wasn’t my first time to really rest since I’d gotten here, but it was close, and it felt really good to just sit back and chill for once. 

Crescent Rose, retrieved from Armsmaster’s workshop after the patrol with Dauntless, sat partially dismantled on the table in front of me, and the module Armsmaster had built while I was out was among the pieces. It was smaller than expected, but it was still going to be tricky to fit it in without taking things out.

I was debating between adding a slot to allow it to rest inside the barrel and just welding it to the outside when I heard the door open behind me. A woman’s voice spoke, “I’m glad to see you’re settling in.”

I half-turned to look over the back of the couch and saw the speaker, dressed in tight camouflage and a colorful scarf in red, white, and blue. Miss Militia. Her scarf was pulled down, and I could see her full face.

I responded carefully as I eased the collapsing barrel extension back into place. “Slowly, but yeah. It’s been a little crazy in the past few days.”

She walked over to the window, looking out at the city past the forcefield bubble. “I certainly know that feeling.” She turned back towards me. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Hannah.”

“Ruby. I’d shake your hand, but, uh…” I reached for the rag before realizing it was already stained black with so much grease that there was no hope of getting my hands clean.

She smiled, then sat down on the next comfy chair over. “I understand. I’ve worked with Armsmaster long enough to get used to the typical Tinker quirks. If I ask what you’re doing, will it set off a whole exhibition?”

“It… might. We should probably avoid that, heh.” I floundered for a conversation topic. “So your thing is guns, right? How does that work?”

She smiled, and a knife sheathed at her side seemed to fly apart into a green-black cloud. The cloud orbited her head once before she raised her hand to catch it as it rematerialized into an assault rifle. “It’s not just guns, but it’s like this. Any weapon I can carry that I’ve seen before, and I can resummon it to reload… you seem impressed.”

That was _so cool!_ “You can do that with _any_ weapon? No risk of jamming, no weight issues, you haven’t b- wait, how do you use your power for hero stuff? I didn’t think people were happy with heroes using deadly weapons.” 

The rifle flickered back into a cloud of energy, then reformed as a machete, then a handgun in one of the holsters around her waist. “You’re right, to a point. If a hero can get away with operating without weapons, then the PR department will try to keep them from using them unless necessary. It really does give off the wrong image, though Dauntless could probably explain that better than I could. There are exceptions for those who can’t operate without weapons - Armsmaster, myself. Even then, we’re limited. I use rubber bullets most of the time, and Armsmaster takes a great deal of care to avoid doing permanent damage.”

That still didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t worth the argument right then. “I guess...”

Hannah continued; “That’s not to say that we never go harder. When the public doesn’t see, or when we’re up against a villain that won’t hold back, then the showmanship stops. I swap to lethal ammunition, Dauntless ups the charge on his Arclance, Velocity pulls out this little knife designed to function with his power... though I guess that’s not as relevant now.”

Oh, right. “I heard the Director kind of replaced him with me. I haven’t really seen how close the team is though… I haven’t messed up something important by joining the team, right? I wouldn’t have been very happy if one of my teammates had been replaced out of nowhere, so…”

She shook her head as she responded, “No, not at all. Assault and Battery will probably miss him, but transfers are pretty common. They can keep in contact, it’ll be fine.”

She seemed pretty confident there, which I took as a good sign. “Alright, that’s good. Umm… you mentioned going harder sometimes, how often does that happen?” 

“It varies. Most of the villains around here are smart enough to not draw too much ire, but they go too far on occasion. Then you’ve got the Brutes or similar that can just take it, so we’ll go harder on them on occasion. Hookwolf, the Twins, Trainwreck.” Something seemed to occur to her, and she continued, “Don’t worry though, we don’t go for the kill unless it’s absolutely necessary.” 

Why would I be worried about that? I understood not wanting to kill, but sometimes you didn’t have a choice. “Why, though? They kill people, right? Why go out of our way to avoid doing the same?”

Her expression hardened, just a little. “They don’t all kill, and just because they do doesn’t mean we need to sink to their level. Don’t assume that we avoid it at all costs, either - if it becomes necessary, then we will… or at least I will. That doesn’t mean it’s the first option we jump to, either.”

I was getting the impression that this was a bad topic, so I backed off. “Okay, okay.” It felt like they were expecting a totally different mindset than my usual one, and it seemed like what they wanted was crazy. I took the excuse of needing to reattach a particularly complex geartrain to the base of Crescent Rose’s blade to avoid having to respond, hoping that Hannah would continue the conversation.

I saw the flickering of her power out of the corner of my eye, as the cloud seemed to take a new form every couple of seconds. After a few moments of awkward silence, she seemed to settle on a very large pistol, which she holstered as she stood. “I should probably leave you to your work. It was nice meeting you, Ruby.”

“Uhh, yeah, you too,” I stammered as she headed for the door. When I heard it shut behind her, I slumped back into my chair. That was the third of my new teammates I’d talked to today, and I’d wound up in an argument with her. It was like my first few days as Weiss’ partner all over again. Hopefully, this would solve itself just as quickly as that situation had.

I carefully ignored the fact that Ozpin wasn’t around to fix our issues this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, this happened quick. This writing goal is doing some good work, heh.
> 
> Not _super_ happy with every piece of this one, but it's acceptable. We're getting to some of the underlying ideas behind this story now, which I'm pretty happy about, and I'll be introducing another minor subplot in the next chapter. Speaking of which, I'm gonna hope I can keep up this level of output, and aim for a release on either October 20 or 27. No promises though, sorry.
> 
> As usual, thanks for reading, constructive criticism is appreciated, and I'll see you next time!


	11. Roots 2-4

“Aaaaand, done!”

Armsmaster looked up from... whatever he was doing to a Gravity Dust round at the other end of his lab. “How does it look?”

I lifted Crescent Rose off the table, gave her an experimental twirl to test the balance, then held the blade out to in front of me and pressed one of the three new switches present on the outer casing. Electricity crackled into life on the blade, stopping at newly-added insulation wrapped around the barrel. I tilted her down toward the floor, and it arced to reach the last inch or so to the ground like a miniaturized Lightning Dust overload.

“We could probably stand to lower the voltage a bit, but it looks like it works! I’ll still need to swap out for a blunted blade… and actually make that blade, but so far so good.”

He nodded. “Did you get the paperwork for it submitted?”

“...Paperwork?”

He straightened, leaving his project on the table. “Nobody told you it was required, did they?”

“Umm… no.” 

“Here.” He moved to a desk near the door and pulled out a stack of papers two fingers thick. That couldn’t be… “Tinkertech application paperwork. You technically should have filled this out for having your scythe in the first place, but this works.”

“Right.” This would be fine, right? “I guess I’ll go do that, then. Thank you for your help!”

He nodded. “Keep that future conversation in mind, please. You can bring it back here, once you’re finished.”

-

Four hours later, after struggling through as much of the paperwork as I could, I went hunting for Armsmaster. A lot of this stuff wasn’t really meant for someone like me - I’d built Crescent Rose years ago, and rebuilt her dozens of times in the interim, so how was I supposed to know how much the parts cost? Especially given that I bought them all with Lien, not Dollars.

Apparently, he had left for an emergency ‘crisis point’ event, whatever that was, just minutes before I finished, so I decided to just leave it in his lab. 

By that point, it was getting close to sundown - half an hour earlier than I was used to at this time of year in Vale, but I guess we were a lot further north here - so I wasn’t expecting to find Vista wandering the halls. She looked like she was going somewhere, so I nodded in greeting and kept walking. The footsteps that stopped behind me before coming back my way gave me pause though.

I turned back around, and Vista froze. “Do you... need something?” I asked.

She took a moment before responding, then took a deep breath and recited, “Yeah, I was over here looking for you. That video of you beating up Fenja and Menja was really impressive, and Kid Win told me that you agreed that we should get to do more, so I wanted to ask if you could help give me some pointers on fighting up-close”

She said it all in one breath and looked up at me, almost nervously. Had she practiced that ahead of time? I’d helped train Oscar back before he fully merged with Ozpin, and I’d done the same thing for Carmine a few months later, so she could have just asked. “Okay, I can do that.” 

Vista looked startled. “Really? Just like that? You’re not wor-” She cut herself off.

“Not worried?”

She looked away. “Worried that I’ll get myself hurt, or take it as an excuse to get into the thick of a fight, or get overconfident and not back off when I should have, or-”

I interrupted, “No, I get it. It’s… not a problem I ever had, I was kind of groomed for this, but I’ll give you some training if you want-” I held up a hand to cut her off, “but we’ll start slow. I’ve never trained someone without Aura before, so we’re gonna start off with basic blocking and dodging until I can figure out exactly how to do this. Make sense?”

Vista nodded, clearly holding back her excitement. “When do we get started?”

I thought to the patrol schedule. If I remembered right, she wasn’t set for anything for a couple days, so… “Is there anything you’ve got to do tonight?”

“Uhh, no?”

“Well, let’s do it now, then. I’ve got to drop this off with Armsmaster, then I can meet you in the gym in a few minutes?”

She seemed kind of… startled, but I could see a smile under her visor. “Okay then!”

I smiled, then turned around and headed for Armsmaster’s workshop, and I heard Vista’s footsteps going the other way after a few seconds. I… wasn’t quite sure what to make of her, yet. She clearly wanted to be taken seriously, which was something I understood well enough. There were actually a lot of similarities between her current situation and where I was when I started training at Beacon - the youngest member of our respective teams, strong but not trusted to be able to pull our weight.

The difference, I realized, was in our circumstances. Ozpin had, for whatever reason, decided to choose me as the leader, and I had managed to prove myself to Weiss and Blake in the following weeks. The way the Wards were structured though, with the oldest member being the one in charge, it would be years before she got a chance to do the same.

That would explain her wanting to train, then. She wanted to get strong enough in close-quarters to prove herself… that could get dangerous. All the issues she’d mentioned before could totally come into play here. I’d need to be careful.

I made my way down to Armsmaster’s lab and slid the paperwork into a slot in the door. Then, I turned back toward the elevator to head down to the training area.

Vista was waiting for me, as expected. What I wasn’t expecting was for her to still be in full costume, going through the motions of some kind of hand-to-hand combat form. She hadn’t noticed my entrance, so I stayed quiet for a moment and watched as she let loose a flurry of punches at her target, an oversized humanoid mannequin that must’ve been seven feet tall. She spun to the side as if to dodge an attack, getting behind it and going for a kick to the backs of its knees.

She wasn’t bad, actually. Compared to what I’d seen of the fighting here, she was probably pretty impressive for her age. Not anywhere near huntress-level, but solid for a beginner. Once I’d gotten a good impression of her general style, I stepped towards her. It still took her a few seconds to notice my approach, that was something we’d need to work on.

She noticed me mid-spin and stopper herself as she came back around. “Scatter! Sorry, I didn’t notice you come in.”

I took on what I was sure was a suitably mysterious teaching expression as I responded, “We’ll work on that.” Her head cocked to the side, but she didn’t respond beyond a nod. I continued, “First off though, I want to get an idea of what you can do already. So… hit me.”

I half-expected her to argue or be confused, but she ran forward with less than a second of hesitation and threw a well-executed punch. I stepped back out of the way, and she kept moving, closing the distance and trying again. I sidestepped, spun, and tapped her on the back of the head. “I’ll hit back if I get the chance, keep your guard up.”

She swore under her breath and spun clockwise, elbowing with her right arm and throwing another punch with her left, following up with a side kick. The blows kept coming, and I could tell that most people would have taken at least one hit by now - but like it or not, she was maybe thirteen with no enhanced strength, and even if she had been fighting a normal person her attacks probably wouldn’t have done much. 

She briefly switched to trying to get a grip on my wrists, but I pulled away from those as well. It would have been more effective against a normal person if she’d used it right, but it wasn’t the answer I was looking for here.

She juked to the right before jumping to the left, getting behind me and pulling the same trick I’d seen her use on the mannequin moments earlier. I felt it coming and could have dodged, but I scattered around it instead.

She went sprawling, clearly not expecting the trick, and pushed herself up to her hands and knees before scampering backward to make some space. She paused for a second, unsure about where to go from there.

I decided to speak up. “You can use your powers, you know. Ideally, we’ll combine them with your general fighting style so they can work together, but- woah.”

I was cut off by the world going crazy. Like a funhouse mirror, the walls to my left and right _stretched_ upward and bent inward, making the ceiling higher and smaller as the entire room seemed to _twist_ at the top. I caught more motion in the corner of my eye and turned my head slightly to see the same thing happening behind me.

I was caught off-guard enough that I didn’t notice Vista herself moving until my aura flared in warning. I hadn’t really understood what she did when I’d seen her power described as ‘large-scale, Manton-limited spatial warping,’ but I was starting to get it now. Still kind of crazy, but I was getting a grasp. I decided that this was good enough to let the hit land, and did so - a second later, a kick impacted my knees. “Good work!” I said.

Vista gave me a look through her visor that I wasn’t sure how to take. “Sure. Can we try again?”

“Umm… alright.” She backed a surprising distance off, and we squared off again. This time, there was no messing around as the ground warped upward so that walls appeared behind me and to the sides and steadily grew higher, while in the same moment the distance between us jumped from several yards to no more than a couple of feet. This girl was _powerful_.

Space stopped warping, and she was already stepping in. I dodged backward from her first hit but had to jump to dodge the second, launching myself up and to the side, ricocheting off the opposite wall and vaulting the top. Vista wasted no time starting to drag them back down to ground level, and before she could I jumped down on the opposite side and waited.

After just a second, before the floor finished returning to its normal shape, she jumped over the barrier and dropped the four or so feet to the ground, landing right in front of me… or where I had been when she jumped. I rolled under her and sprang up behind her landing point, repeating my move from earlier and tapping her on the back again. 

Vista was decent on the attack, but she didn’t watch her flanks and her mobility could use some work. I could also already see some different ways to use her Semblance, as long as I was understanding it right.

I decided to let her keep going for a minute, though. From her reaction earlier, I didn’t think she’d take it well for me to end the match right after landing a hit. She repeated the same series of moves she’d tried the first time I hit her, and I predicted the exact moment she overextended in order to move past her again. It looked like we’d need to work on the variety of her attacks as well.

I decided to make some distance and make her chase me a bit, but I was caught off-guard by space warping ahead of me though. A flare of my aura and a glance back showed that I had only managed to get a few feet away from her with a movement that should have taken me a good dozen yards away. Vista was already mid-punch, so I let it hit so we could move on. “Alright, that was better.”

She seemed more satisfied with that one. What was the difference, though? “I can see where we’ll need to start off. First things first, we’re gonna teach you how to not get hit.”

“No attacking yet?” She seemed pretty disappointed. Yeah, it was good that I’d realized what her intentions were, here.

“Not yet, no. You’re not a huntress, you don’t have Aura, and I couldn’t give it to you. You can’t take a hit like I can, so we’re going to make sure you don’t have to take any. I’m not sure I can get you up to bullet-timing, but we should be able to find other ways around it.”

I saw her mouth ‘bullet timing?’ to herself before nodding slowly. I raised my arms into a combat stance and smiled. “You might want to start running.”

Her eyes widened, and the floor in front of her shot up into a wall between us.

-

“So it’s our turn to escort the newbie now, huh?” 

Battery flicked her husband. “Be nice. Scatter, it’s nice to actually meet you. Out-of-costume, I’m Samantha, and I think you’ve met Ethan already.”

I shifted my mask slightly to see them around it, smiling in greeting. “Ruby. I heard we were doing a police ridealong this time? Are we going anywhere in particular, or…”

Assault answered, “Not this time, nope. Just introducing you to the BBPD, and outside of that, it’s basically another patrol. We’ll be following a few of their patrol cars along their routes and responding to whatever comes up, but overall it’s just a normal patrol.”

Made sense. I’d be meeting more people, but at least they were police. I’d worked with law enforcement before, so I figured it should be similar.

One of the PRT troopers drove us across the bridge in a big armored van this time, and we kept going into the actual city. There weren’t as many people waiting as there were last time, and there wasn’t any cheering either - it took me a minute to realize that they might not actually know we were inside.

The trooper called back through the partition, “Traffic’s looking pretty thick, we’ve probably got about twenty minutes before we get there.”

“Thank you!” I called back. She nodded into the mirror before opaque plastic slid into the gap, separating us. Both Assault and Battery took off their helmets, so I did the same. Battery was younger than I’d expected, no more than a year or so older than I was.

After a little bit of silence, I decided to try and start the conversation. “So, do we work with the police often?”

They both looked surprised for a second, but then Battery chuckled. “I’m going to keep forgetting you’re not from around here. Yes, we work with them often. We’re basically doing the same job, anyway. Did you not do the same thing where you came from?”

I responded, “Not really. We worked together sometimes, and I guess it’s been more common lately, but the Huntsmen mainly went after the Grimm.” Or occasionally other Huntsmen. That had been happening more often lately too. “When it came to things the police or even the military couldn’t handle, we got sent in.”

“That sounds… terrifying, to be honest. Like how we get sent up against the Endbringers. That kind of thing was your entire job?” Batt- Samantha asked.

“I mean, if I was in the area when a robbery went down, I’d help deal with it, but… yeah.” I loved it when that happened. Brought back some fun memories. “It was pretty much just… normal, everyday life to me.” Not that we ever had much of a ‘normal’ life, but that was beside the point.

“Endbringer attacks every few months are bad enough, but… how often did you go out?”

“Uh, every few days?” I responded. They looked at me agape. I explained, “Most Grimm really aren’t that scary if you know what you’re doing, and the really dangerous ones are rare enough that most people didn’t have to deal with one more than every few months or so. It’s been a little different lately since more aren’t being spawned and the big ones are the only targets left, but it wasn’t usually all that stressful. And there’s always more Huntsmen, so we can kind of set our own hours, to a point anyway.”

Ethan spoke up, “Out of curiosity, did you work alone, or…” 

“I never did, but I know lots of people were different. Huntsmen get formed into four-member teams when they enter the second level of schooling and work with them until graduation. My team… never actually finished all that, but we’ve mostly stuck together up until a few months ago.”

Battery gave me a concerned look. “Are they… alright?” What did she… oh!

“Oh, n- yes! They’re fine. Weiss, my partner, went off to run her family’s company after her father got arrested for… things, Blake got voted into the leadership of the new White Fang, and Yang wound up accepting a job teaching. I kept working with other teams, whenever the opportunity came up.” I’d never liked the idea of going Hunting alone. Never been sure why, but the idea of something bad happening and nobody ever finding out what it was scared me enough that I put up with the hero-worship I got from most Huntsmen teams.

“Oh, well that’s good. Glad to hear they’re alright.”

There was a bit of an awkward silence then, that I found myself breaking. “I wish they’d stuck around. I probably wouldn’t be here if they had.” 

Where had that come from? I was doing fine here. Sure, I missed them, but…

The pair’s expressions had changed as I said that. Assault’s brow furrowed, and Battery took on a slightly pained look, as if I was reminding her of something. Assault was the first to speak though. “They’re working on getting you back, right? I’m no Tinker, but have they said anything about how long it might take?”

I shook my head. “Dragon had no idea. I’ll find a way eventually but until then… well, I guess I’m here, doing what I can. I’ve been getting used to dealing with new teams over the past few months, I can do this too.” I paused for a second. “I’m not the only one dealing with a changing team, so if you all can do it than I can too.”

Battery smiled a bit, but Assault frowned. “Yeah, I guess so. All this alternate universe stuff, Velocity leaving... it’s a lot to take in.”

Oh, right. Here I was talking about my team separating when I was directly responsible for doing the same thing to this team. Sure, it was only one person, but still. “Yeah… I’m sorry about Velocity. I guess his leaving is kind of my fault.”

Assault prepared to speak up again, but Battery cut him off. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. He’s only headed to Boston, and it’s not like we’re never going to see him again. We would have lost Challenger anyway, so it’s not like much has changed.” 

Assault looked like he wanted to say something, but ended up staying silent and I didn’t push. The van started pulling to a stop, and we replaced our masks before the partition opened again, saving me from awkwardly responding.

The trooper called through the gap. “You all masked back there?” At a confirmation from Battery, she continued, “Alright, popping the back. This has been Pinto taxi service, thank you for flying with us!” She picked up a joking tone near the end, but as usual, I didn’t get the reference.

Assault’s typical grin had returned, and he replied, “Thanks for the ride, Pinto. We’ll find our own way back.”

“Aww, that hurts! You might make somebody think you weren’t a fan of my driving!”

“You’re right, I might.”

She laughed, rolling up the window as she restarted her van and began pulling away. Battery was giving her husband a dirty look, but I barely noticed as I heard a commotion behind me and turned to find maybe half a dozen police officers exiting the building and looking directly at me. The leader, a big guy with a cap and a blonde beard, held out a hand in greeting. “So you’re our new cape, huh? You’ve kicked up quite a stir.”

Behind him, the officers that had followed him out had expressions ranging from impressed to annoyed. As I hesitantly stepped forward to greet them, I began to realize that today would be starting out with little more than schmoozing. Again. Was this all we did as heroes? I’d seen exactly one fight since I got here, and I knew from the incident reports that people were getting hurt on our watch.

Surely, if we put some of the efforts we had placed into PR into actually stopping criminals, this city would be a safer place, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like my chapters have started getting longer. If I'd written these scenes a year ago, I'm pretty sure they'd be half this length. Not totally sure why that is, to be honest. As is, I've had to add an extra chapter to this arc to keep from winding up with a random 5k-word chapter at the end. This oughta be... interesting if it continues.
> 
> The next chapter is (somehow) like two-thirds complete already, so I'm gonna try to post it on Halloween. If I manage it, then I'm going to take November off of this story and do NaNoWriMo - _not_ the full 50k words, that's probably never gonna happen, but instead aiming for a chapter every day, written for a sort of prequel-series to Scatterer that would bridge the gap between canon and the beginning of the story. With more volumes of RWBY coming out, I want to make it obvious what is and isn't canon - I've mentioned before that everything up through Volume 4 is canon to this story, and that much of Volume 5 actually lined up fairly well with what I had planned, but Volume 6's trailer looks to be diverging pretty heavily so I'd like to distinguish the two. I'll probably be posting the chapters once or twice a week to give me time to look them over. I've never done something like this before, so let me know what you think!
> 
> And... yeah. Roots 2-5 hopefully coming on October 31, 2-6 probably mid-December. See you then!


	12. Roots 2-5

The masks-on alarm sounded through the elevator door, and after a few moments the door opened up. Vista was nowhere in sight, and neither was anyone else. 

It was only after stepping into the room that I noticed a girl sitting quietly on a couch that was pushed up against the wall, dressed in solid black with a woman’s face etched into her mask. She looked up from the Scroll in her hand, and though I couldn’t see her eyes she looked to be watching me. 

“Oh, hi. Shadow Stalker, right? Uh… is Vista down here?”

She huffed. “The runt? Upstairs, I think. Dragged Clock and Kid with her.”

Runt? Huh. I thought back to my mental map of the building. “In the cafeteria?”

“Hell if I know. Thought keeping an eye on her was your job, not mine.”

Shadow Stalker wasn’t one for second impressions either, it seemed. “Not exactly, but okay. Thank you for your help.”

She huffed and looked down to her Scroll- no, they were called phones here - and proceeded to ignore me. I turned and re-entered the elevator, assuming that I wouldn’t be getting any more help from the Wards dome. 

I was thinking I’d have to ask somebody about her.It was hard to explain why, but the impression I got from her was similar to the one I got from Raven. A sort of automatic disdain for everything surrounding them. 

A search of the cafeteria didn’t reveal any Wards, and their boss in the PRT, a man named Renick, hadn’t seen the trio either. After a good fifteen minutes of looking, my questions about Shadow Stalker slipped away as I finally found them in, of all places, the PRT building’s gym. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as the setup on the Rig, but it had a small boxing ring, which they were currently occupying. Well, Vista was occupying it, anyway. Clockblocker and Kid Win were a little too busy groaning on the floor to be occupying much of anything.

Vista noticed me coming this time. “Hey, Scatter!”

I laughed as I responded, “How’d this happen?” 

She seemed pretty happy, for once. “I was talking about our sparring, and they wanted to see how well it was working.”

Clockblocker sat up. “I can confirm, it seems to be working!”

“Was this with or without powers?” I asked.

“Without,” Vista replied, ducking under the ropes at the edge of the ring and jumping down. “We’re not supposed to use them in here.”

Kid Win climbed to his feet, bracing himself on the raised floor of the ring until he found his balance. “So, uhh…” He shook his head. “Can you teach me how to do that too?”

“Same here,” said Clockblocker. “I never even touched her, couldn’t have done anything even with my powers. How did you manage that in a single training session?”

Vista and I traded glances, and I saw that she was waiting for me to answer. “She was already pretty good at it, and I can tell you from experience that normal combat seems sluggish after spending a few hours trying to dodge a speedster.” Not even touching him was pretty impressive though. How had she managed that? “As for training… sure, I guess. You want to join us at the PHQ?”

They both- well, Kid Win grinned. I assumed Clock was too, from his voice. They both whooped, attracting some extra attention from the handful of seemingly-everpresent PRT troopers in the room.

I, caught between not wanting to interrupt but wanting to get things moving, got their attention with a hand. “Alright, um, let’s get moving.” 

They looked surprised, and Clock was the one to speak up. “Oh, now? Umm… sure!” Kid, looking to him, nodded along as Vista gave the pair a funny look.

That was… odd. A thought occurred to me, and I responded. “Okay, you three head up to the roof, and I’ll meet you there in a couple minutes.”

They happily started moving toward the locker rooms. I, meanwhile, stepped back towards the elevator, going down instead of up. The ride back down to the Wards HQ was just as fast as the first time, and I found Shadow Stalker missing when I arrived. That… was probably a good thing, to be honest.

A quick check of the roster confirmed my suspicions. The pair were scheduled for a patrol in half an hour. I guessed they were planning on taking my offer as permission to skip out. I guessed they would still get in trouble for it, but maybe they thought they could deflect some of it.

It almost felt hypocritical to get mad at them for this, since it was pretty much exactly the kind of thing team RWBY would have tried back at Beacon, but still. We had thought we knew what we were doing, and it was only after facing some of the real threats we were up against that we learned our success was more due to luck than anything.

Of course, I understood not wanting to go, if their patrols were as pointless as mine seemed to be. Extra training might actually be more useful if that was even their plan. What to do…

Several minutes later, I thought, inspired by, of all things, my time traveling to Haven. More thinking turned it into a full idea. I’d have to move before they suspected anything, though.

-

“Go for Challenger.”

“Hi! I’ve got an idea, not sure if I can pull it off, wanted to check with you first.”

“...I’m sorry, who is this? You’re not in my contacts.”

Oh, right. Still had to figure out how the phones here worked. I had decided a while ago not to mention the full hour I had spent trying to figure out how this thing worked when I first got it. “Oh, sorry. I’m Scatter. Clockblocker and Kid Win were wanting some training instead of patrolling, and I was wondering if we could combine the two.”

“Ah, they tried to skip out on that again?” His tone was resigned, as if this were a regular occurrence.

I responded, “Yeah, afraid so. How often does that happen?”

“Too often,” Challenger chuckled. “I’ll bring it up next time I see them. What’d you have in mind, training-wise?” He sounded intrigued, but it was hard to tell without being able to see him.

“Vista and I would shadow them on the patrol. We could get some practice done outside of the gym, and the boys would join us once they were done.” 

“Sounds good. Actually, if you’re working with them off-base, do you want some help? You could probably use somebody who knows the city, and I could pull some attention off you like Dauntless did if it comes up.”

Did he expect it to come up? I guessed he would know best, there. “Sounds good. Meet you at the bridge building in a few minutes?”

“See you there.” He ended the call, saving me the trouble of figuring out how.

Alright, now we had a plan. I walked out of the empty office, clearly one that somebody used regularly, closed the door behind me, and headed for the roof. I’d needed somewhere quiet fast, and this was the first one I’d found.

The Wards were waiting for me on the top floor, looking pretty bored after the ten minutes I’d kept them waiting. I’d ducked into the office to avoid a tour group that I’d heard coming through looking at the views earlier, and the Wards would have been right in their path. It had probably looked like I’d set them up for that, but they still perked up when they saw me coming in.

“Alright kiddos, let’s head out!” Vista’s expression dropped a little, defaulting to neutrality. It was harder than it looked to keep from annoying her with that kind of thing. It was usually pretty easy to fix, though. “Vista, how fast can you get us to the PHQ bridge?”

As expected, she perked back up at the opportunity to make herself useful. She smirked and responded, “My record’s two minutes and twenty-one seconds, but I can usually make it in less than five.”

“Alright, let’s go! Challenger’s waiting for us, so we should hurry.” Clock and Kid both paused at that but kept moving. Yeah, they caught the subtext there. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed, it, actually. I guess the emotive training I’d heard about us having to take worked pretty well.

We stepped outside, and Vista immediately raised an arm and started running. Within moments, the entire block of rooftops was no more than a few dozen yards across, and the next block over was tilted towards us, stretching over the street in a way that didn’t look like it could possibly be safe. Kid dropped his hoverboard, jumping onto it as it hovered back up, and flew a few blocks ahead.

If I had my mental map right, there were maybe three miles between the PRTHQ and our destination. The way we were moving, from one empty, partially compressed rooftop to another, turned it into less than a quarter of that. The city practically flew by underneath us, and, just as Vista had claimed, we found ourselves dropping down to the ground across the street from the bridge in just a hair over four minutes.

There was some light applause from the gathered crowd - not nearly as big as the one from my first day, but still big enough. The Wards jumped into it easily, expertly tackling most of the crowd and, maybe even accidentally, took almost all the heat off of me.

Not everyone, though. It was only a couple of minutes before a little girl, no older than seven or eight, shuffling up to me and hesitantly holding out a little notebook and a marker.

She clearly wasn’t going to say anything, so I overrode my internal squeeing, knelt down, and grabbed her marker. “Hi, there! What’s your name?” I caught cameras pointing our way out of the corner of my eye, and intentionally put them out of my mind.

She went very still, not out of fear, but more… surprise. “E- Erin,” she spoke, in a voice that was barely even a whisper. She was adorable.

“Hi, Erin. I’m Ru-” I cut myself off. I was starting to hate this whole identity thing. “I’m Scatter. Are you having a good vacation?” It was a guess, but a good one. I could see her parents watching carefully from a few yards away, and tourists were recognizable just about anywhere.

Her eyes went wide. “Yeah!”

I finished signing, adding a little flair by capping the ‘R’ with a hastily-drawn rose, as close to the one on my mask as I could get it with the marker, and handed them back to her. I smiled, still unsure if it actually mattered, and said, “I’m glad to hear it. I think your parents are waiting for you over there, you might want to get back to them.”

Erin nodded excitedly, turned around and ran back to her parents, waving the book back and forth through the air. I saw her mother catch her and swing her in the air as her father looked to me and mouthed ‘thank you.’

A flicker of shimmering silver in the corner of my eye drew my attention away, and I saw Challenger coming in for a landing. Parts of the Wards’ autograph lines converged on him as his forcefield platform vanished and he dropped the last three feet or so to the ground across from me. 

After a moment I heard a crackle as the communicator in my ear activated and a voice I didn’t recognize spoke. “Challenger wants me to tell you that your group should start moving along. This many heroes in one place tends to clog things up. Challenger will stay behind for a few minutes, while you four move along into the city.”

The earpiece communicator worked pretty much exactly like the ones in the movies, so I slipped my hand under my hood and pressed the button. Then I realized that I didn’t know any of the protocols or whatever for talking on the radio, but I’d already pressed the button. “Uh, Roger, understood. We’re moving out.”

There was a short pause before he responded. “There’s no need for the radio procedure Scatter, you can talk normally.” I heard the man’s voice catch a little, and as the Wards began making their way towards me I saw Kid’s shoulders shaking as he poorly suppressed laughter.

I turned around, not really knowing what else anyone was expecting from me, and started making my way out of the crowd. The Wards followed close behind, and the crowd started falling away once we left the Boardwalk. By the time we were a few blocks in, the handful of tourists following behind us who hadn’t known where we were headed had noticed their surroundings decline and turned back.

At the Ward’s prompting, we made sure not to leave that street until they were back to the Boardwalk. Very few people were dumb enough to start something with no less than four heroes within line-of-sight, but that changed if we left the area.

Within a few minutes, Challenger flew overhead, and a shout from Vista drew his attention. “Sorry about that, wasn’t expecting that big of a crowd for an unannounced patrol,” Challenger said as he came in for a landing. He looked over towards Clock and Kid, who were busy looking as non-suspicious as possible. “I heard you two volunteered for some extra training on your patrol! Glad to hear you’re being so responsible for once!”

Nobody was fooled by his tone, least of all the boys in question. They assumed suitably ashamed postures and muttered apologies, and Challenger ‘hmm’d and nodded. He looked to be suppressing some laughter as he did it though, and the Wards perked back up as soon as he turned around. From that, and from Vista’s shaking head, I got the impression that this wasn’t exactly an uncommon thing.

Challenger spoke up again a few moments later. “Wards, how about you move ahead a little? Don’t get too far, but you can do some running on your own for a bit.” 

The boys practically glowed with excitement, and even Vista had a smile on her face. “A Wards-only patrol through the Docks? Really?”

He held up a hand, and they quieted. “Stay in contact, and within a few blocks. If you see trouble, call us and wait for our approval before engaging, and stay together. Understood?”

Vista’s attempt at a mature ‘Yes, sir!’ was drowned out by Clock and Kid’s cheers, and she eventually gave up and followed after them, warping space to catch up and move the group along even faster. Within seconds, they were out of sight.

Challenger chuckled. “I see the Wards have already attached themselves to you.”

I gave him a confused look, then remembered my mask and spoke instead. “What do you mean? This is only, like, the second time I’ve met Clock or Kid.”

“You haven’t seen much of it yet, but it won’t take long,” he said. “The same thing happened back when Velocity joined up - he was in the military, had some fighting experience, so the Wards that were here at the time jumped all over him for a few weeks.”

Made sense. “I noticed they were a little starved for action. I figured some training and sparring would help with that.” If their reaction to that little bit of independence was any judge, they really needed it.

Challenger nodded. “Yeah, I think it will do them some good. I… would be careful not to do anything too crazy though. If you can honestly call it self-defense, that would probably be best.” He paused, continuing more hesitantly a second later. “I’m… not sure if this is a sensitive topic, but from what you’ve mentioned about your past, I got the impression that you’ve been fighting… for a long time.” 

He watched me carefully as if to gauge my reaction. I was more confused than anything though. “Yeah, ever since I was a kid. Why?”

When he responded, his voice had changed. Not so much hesitation as… wariness? “That’s the kind of thing that the Youth Guard are watching for. If they learn that the Wards are being combat-trained by somebody who grew up in and supports that kind of environment? It wouldn’t go well for us, to put it lightly.”

I had several questions bubbling up in response to that. Why did it matter who was training them? What was so different about the ‘environment I grew up in?’ I held back though, thinking of Challenger’s comment about it being a sensitive subject, and chose the safest option. “What can I do to make sure that doesn’t happen? If what I’ve seen from them over the past few days says anything, they’ll need this sooner or later, or they’ll wind up fighting when they shouldn’t be and getting themselves hurt.”

Even I was itching for a fight by this point, after a solid week of nothing but schmoozing and patrols. The Wards had been here for years, and as far as I could tell, they were being kept away from fighting in general.

His response was immediate. “Talk to Piggot. Brockton Bay is one of the most dangerous cities on the East Coast, and like it or not our Wards get involved in more fights than virtually any other team in the Protectorate.” _This_ was more fighting than anywhere else? “She’s been negotiating with the Youth Guard for years, she knows what they will and won’t accept in regard to training and resources. We can get away with a little, and she tends to not look too closely if nobody finds out and we don’t tell her, but I recommend you check with her before doing anything.

Ugh. More bureaucracy. I was starting to feel for Ozpin and Glynda, they must’ve had to deal with this kind of thing all the time. Still though, if it was what I had to do, then I’d do it. “Alright, I guess I can do that.”

He nodded, and we continued on. Four blocks ahead of us, I saw the roofs on either side of the street stretch towards each other, and all three Wards jumped across the gap. It must’ve been a good four feet across when they jumped, but Challenger didn’t seem too worried.

I found myself considering the conversations I’d been having with my new teammates over the last few days. There’d been quite a few common threads, which made sense given the circumstances, but the one that stuck out at that moment was my past, and how I operated. I’d been working as a Huntress since I was sixteen, and I’d been training at some level since I was nine. That wasn’t all that special for Huntsman families like mine, even if most Huntsmen-in-training started in the local academies at age thirteen.

The Wards were apparently kept away from combat as much as possible, yet I was younger than Vista when I killed my first Grimm. Miss Militia was upset at the idea of killing villains, but I had killed people relatively often in defense of others. Assault and Battery balked at the idea of constant, dangerous fighting, but that had been my entire lifestyle before now.

I was going to have to admit that the habits and beliefs that I’d developed back home just didn’t apply here. Maybe it had to do with the Grimm, maybe it was just Semblances being more recent here, but the culture here was totally different, and it wasn’t about to change on my account.

Whether the culture was different or not though, people were the same at the core, and kids with Semblances needed to use them in any world. I could see the effects this lifestyle was having on the Wards and where they were going to wind up without something changing, and they needed this. This world didn’t have anything approaching Beacon, so I was going to need to take its place for these kids. Bureaucracy, PR, and all.

I could do it. Probably.

A thought came to me, and I turned to look back at Challenger, smiling. “How do you think Piggot would feel about a surprise sparring match for those kids? There’s probably some abandoned warehouses out here, right? Keep everything out of sight?”

He paused, then chuckled. “I’ll radio in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, two chapters in two weeks. I don't know how I did this. I already had a solid two-thirds of this done by the time I posted 2-4, but still. Who am I and what did I do with the real me?
> 
> This'll be the last chapter until December, most likely, with The Salem War (the prequel) coming out biweekly in the interim. It'll have much shorter chapters, though. There'll be an overarching story, but it'll be more of a snippet anthology than something resembling this. It'll probably release on some combination of Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but even I won't know which until I try it. It might take a week or so to stabilize.
> 
> I don't feel like this one is as good as I'd like it to be, especially for how important it is to the overall plot, but it's good enough. Now to take a few light days before beginning the daily 4-600 that'll be required for my mini-version of NaNoWriMo. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, I'll take any criticism I can get, and I'll see you next time!


End file.
